LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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STRAY AKROWS. 



396. 



REV. THEO. LEDYARD CUTLER, 






NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
No. 285 BROADWAY. 



1851. 









^1 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by 

ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New ^ork. 



THOMAS B. SMITH, STKREOTYPER, 
216 WILLIAM STREET, N. Y. 



■^ . * J- 



-•-W^\^^\\ 



TO THE 

THIRD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 

OF TRENTON, 

'*MY JOY AND MY CROWN," 

THIS LITTLE VOLUME 
OF FAMILIAR SKETCIIiv-S AXD COUNSELS, 

fis Affectionately? JJuscrfbeU, 

BY THEIR PASTOR. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

THE BOW AT A VENTURE, .... 7 

RESCUING THE LOST 14 

THE CHURCH THERMOMETER, 20 

PULPIT EARNESTNESS, 24 

god's book for man's INTELLECT, . . . .29 

THE FLOWER OF RYDAL 82 

HOLY RUTHERFORD, . .... 37 

A DEATH BED PREACHER, ..... 44 

M'CHEYNE, 51 

SOME METHODS OF ANSWERING PRAYER, . . 58 

THE ACTIVE CHRISTIAN, 70 

THE SELF-DOOMED, 75 

FAITH AND WORKS, 79 

BUNYAn's CHARACTERS, 85 

THAT ONE WORD, 92 

THi; ALL-SEEING KYE, 96 

1^ 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAOB 

A CONTRAST, 102 

THE MASTER-PASSION 10*7 

THE LIGHT-HOUSE, 112 

" GIVE UP ALL FOR CHRIST," .... 116 

THE PLACE OF HONOR, 120 

THE CITY ON A HILL, 123 

" ALL THESE THINGS ARE AGAINST ME," . . . 126 

THE LIVING SACRIFICE, 133 

" NOT ASHAMED OF MY CHAIN," . . . .136 

A MULTIPLICATION TABLE FOR THE CHURCH, . . 142 

THE ZEAL OF PAUL, 148 

A REMINISCENCE, ...... 153 

WAR AS IT IS, 159 

" THE LORD STOOD WITH ME," . . , .164 



€llB %m at u iBntTO. 

Among the many delightful prayer- 
meetings held during a revival in the 

town of B , there was one which I 

never can forget, and which some souls, 
I trust, will remember in that hour when 
the redeemed shall be summoned in to 
the marriage supper of the Lamb. It 
was held in a private dwelling, and the 
rooms were thronged. The house was as 
silent as the grave, when I entered, and 
many were sitting with their heads bowed 
and their faces covered. An awful so- 
lemnity hung over the little assembly, for 
the Spirit of the Lord " was in that 



8 STEAY AKEOWS. 

place." An hour was spent in singing 
two or tliree inviting hymns, and while 
two aged men (both far up the Delectable 
Mountains) poured forth fervent prayers, 
which were interrupted by frequent sobs, 
and ejaculations. When the benediction 
was pronounced, a request was made 
that all who desired private conversation 
on the state of their souls would remain. 
The whole assembly settled back again, 
as one man, into their seats ! The scene 
was overwhelming. Some of those be- 
fore me were professed Christians, some 
had been openly profane, many of them 
were strangers. It was evident that a 
word must be spoken to all, and the bow 
be " drawn at a venture." 

Near me sat a young female dressed in 
black, whose face betokened a deep so- 
lemnity. I had never seen her before, 
and supposed her to be a member of a 



THE BOW AT A VENTURE. 9 

neighboring churcli wlio liad come in to 
unite lier prayers witb. our own. Ap- 
proaching her respectfully, I ventured to 
ask her if " she had any hope that she 
was a child of God?" Her head drop- 
ped in a moment ; she burst into tears, 
and in her deep emotion her answer to 
me was not intellioible. With a kind 
word of exhortation I left her, and after 
a little inquiry I learned that she had 
been for a long time u.tterly thoughtless, 
and a perpetual neglecter of the house 
of God. At our next meeting I saw the 
same face again, but sadder than before. 
At the end of a fortnight (one of inde- 
scribable anguish to her struggling soul) 
the cloud left her brow, and the serenity 
of a peace that passeth understanding 
sat like a dove upon her happy coun- 
tenance. She is now an humble and 
consistent member of the fold of Christ. 



lO STRAY ARROWS. 

Farther on was a timid and retiring 
young member of my congregation, with 
whom I had never had an opportunity 
for conversation. As she sat with her 
face covered, I addressed a few pointed 
inquiries to her and turned away. The 
next day a member of my church called 
upon me to say that the person whom I 
had addressed as impenitent and thought- 
less, was a church-member before I came 

to B , but her name had either been 

omitted from the record, or confounded 
with that of two others in the congrega- 
tion bearing the same name. I sent the 
necessary explanation to her, and thought 
no more about it. When nearly a month 
had elapsed, the same person who had 
before waited on me, stopped me one 
evening at the church-door and said, "I 

wish you would call on M T , 

and endeavor to calm her.* She is in a 



THE BOW AT A VENTURE. 11 

state of utter despair. Those remarks 
that yon made to her in the inqniry- 
meeting by mistake have troubled her 
ever since. She fears now that she never 
was a true Christian, and after a long 
struggle with her pride, she can no longer 
conceal her anguish. I fear, sir, that 
she will lose her reason." I called at 
once, as requested, and found the un- 
happy young woman the picture of de- 
spair. It was a long time before her 
weeping eyes could be turned toward 
Calvary, or she could be persuaded that 
there was mercy left for one who had so 
long done despite to the Spirit of divine 
grace. But the wound which the stray 
arrow — guided by infinite wisdom — ^had 
made, was at length healed. The Mas- 
ter's gentle voice whispered " Peace." 
She went on her way rejoicing, and 
though her eye may never rest on this 



12 STRAY ARROWS. 

humble volume, she can hardly forget to 
her dying- day that interview in the in- 
quiry-meeting. 

During the progress of the revival, it 
was pleasant to hear from one how he 
had been awakened by a tract handed to 
him, "at a venture" — ^how another had 
been aroused by some particular passage 
in a discourse — and how some had been 
reached by truths that were aimed at 

others than themselves. " Dr. C 

preached entirely at me last evening," said 
a young man to me one Monday morning 
" He reached my own case exactly, and 
I never heard such a sermon before." It 
is certain that he never heard before with 
such a spirit as then; and for that dis- 
course he will doubtless bless Eedeeming 
Love when the ransomed host shall shout 
their Harvest Home I 

Fainting and desponding minister of 



THE BOW AT A VENTURE. IS 

Christ ] wlio shall dare to tell you, when 
you have come back from preaching the 
cross boldly and earnestly, that many an 
arrow may not have pierced the waiting 
souls around you? You may not have 
seen its flight. You may have heard no 
outcry of the wounded soul. You may 
have seen no tears, and heard no groans. 
You may never hear of tkem in this 
world. But in the great day of retribu- 
tion you shall stand as God's appointed 
archer, with the trophies of redeeming 
grace about you, — and stars shall blaze 
in the coronet of your rejoicing, which 
are now unseen save by Him who se6th 
in secret and rewardeth openly. 
2 



A FEW montlis since two American 
vessels set off from one of our sea-ports 
on a long and adventurous voyage. They 
were manned by bold and fearless sea- 
men ; by men in the prime of their vigor, 
and in the fresh ecthusiasm of youth. A 
little while before, other vessels, freighted 
in the same manner for a protracted 
cruise, had shaken out their sails and un- 
moored from the British ports. They 
had all turned their bows in the same di- 
rection, and bore up toAvards the Polar 
seas. The same errand took them all, 
and in months past had called forth 



KESCUING THE LOST. 15 

Others still, who had gone below the ho- 
rizoD, and never yet returned. And what 
was the object of that bold adventure? 
Have they committed themselves to the 
perils of those howling seas, for the lust 
of gold ? Have they gone for the Polar 
furs, or the spoils of the Northern fishe- 
ries ? Was it a battle-fleet, well manned 
for slaughter and for victory? Was it 
even an expedition for scientific explora- 
tion — to determine a magnetic pole, or 
find out the long-sought North- West pas- 
sage ? 

No ! No ! For an object vastly higher 
and nobler than any selfish scheme of 
gain, or glory, have they gone. It is an 
errand of mercy ^ on which they sally forth 
in defiance of tempest and of iceberg. 
That fleet — like the squadrons which en- 
circled the shores of famine-stricken Ire- 
land in her hour of misery — is a fleet of 



16 STRAY ARROWS. 

immanity. It goes not out armed with 
murderous guns, to destroy, but witli food 
and raiment, with chart and compass, to 
rescue and restore. It goes to seek, and 
(if possible) to save — to " save the lost." 
The whole heart of the civilized world 
had throbbed with anxiety for Sir John 
Franklin, and his long-absent crew. One 
noble woman's heart — Grod grant not yet 
a widow's heart ! has touched all the rest 
with the magnetism of kindred sympathy. 
Christian philanthropy responds to these 
generous impulses, and fits out her squad- 
rons to seek and to save the lost. 

Now there is no one who does not sym- 
pathize with that enterprise of moral 
grandeur — no one who does not feel for 
those lost men, and applaud the heroic 
philanthropy which risks so much to save 
them. But have you forgotten that 
another expedition was once undertaken 



EESCUING THE LOST. 17 

on a far nobler, far grander, far holier 
errand of compassion ? Not to save one 
commander and his crew, but to save an 
imperilled world! Not to save the count- 
less multitude from physical death, but 
from an eternal death — a death that never 
dies. Not to bring them back to human 
homes and kindred, but to a celestial 
home — a home in the Paradise of God. 
This expedition that I am speaking of, 
was not undertaken by a whole compan3r 
of men to rescue their fellow-men, but by 
one Personage to rescue His own rebel- 
lious enemies. Not to endure the physi- 
cal hardships of one Arctic winter did He 
come, but to endure the sorrows of a 
whole life of suffering; nor was it with 
the mere rish of death as in the case of 
our philanthropists, but with the actual 
and expectant certainty of dying an igno- 
minious death for those whom he came to 
2" 



18 STRAY ARROWS. 

seek, and save. And when men came 

around Him with their sneers, and scoffs, 

and wished to know who He. was, and 

what brought Him among them. He gave 

them back the glorious answer — " The 

Son of Man is come to seek, and to save 

the lost !" 

* ^ ^ * * * 

Carry your minds forward to the con- 
summation of the magnificent scheme of 
grace. — The success of the Polar expedi- 
tion for the lost mariners you can im- 
agine. What a sight would it be to 
behold the gallant Franklin and his 
comrades, marched once more through 
London's streets — all there — all safe — all 
well — the faces of many weather-beaten 
tars streaming with tears of joy ! What 
a peal of welcome would greet th^m, and 
with what huzzas would their bold de- 
liverers be hailed from every window and 



RESCUING THE LOST. 19 

every crowded house-top ! But wliat is 
sucli a scene compared with the triumph- 
ant entry of the ransomed Church of 
Christ through the flashing streets of the 
New Jerusalem !" Listen to the hallelujah- 
peals of joy as they pass along, a multi- 
tude that no man can number. One song 
animates and fires them all! Listen to 
it as the far-off wave of melody rolls on — 
" WoETHY IS THE Lamb !" And then, as 
it comes nearer, we hear the whole 
" heavenly oratorio," with its myriads of 
voices — " Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain to receive wisdom, and power, and 
riches, and honor, and blessing. Unto 
Him that loved us, and gave Himself for 
us, be the glory and the dominion, for- 
ever!" 



Well, wliat is that ? Ask any veteran 
pastor wb-o has weathered the storms, and 
rejoiced in the sunshines of a long minis- 
terial life, and he will tell you that it is 
the social prayer-meeting. The true ther- 
mometer of a church, to indicate its spirit- 
ual temperature, is the weekly gathering 
around the mercy-seat. A cold prayer- 
meeting marks a cold church. It is at 
once the cause, and the effect of spiritual 
declension. 

If the place of prayer is well nigh de- 
serted ; if the few who are present bodily 
seem absent in spirit ; if the prayers of- 



THE CHUKCH THERMOMETER. 21 

fered are languid, formal, meaningless, 
without point, and without unction, then 
the pastor has abundant cause for heart- 
heaviness and tears. Sermons preached 
to such a people, are like discourses deliv- 
ered in one of the ruined temples of Lux- 
or, with the shrivelled dead embalmed 
around him, and grim heads of stone look- 
ing down from every capital. His hands 
hang down, and his spirit faints. 

And as a church has no surer symptom 
of decay than a decaying prayer-meeting, 
so nothing feels the approach of a revival 
so palpably as the place of prayer. A re- 
vival commonly begins there. The de* 
serted seats are filled. Those who ^^ could 
not leave their business," now find but lit- 
tle difficulty in closing the doors of their 
shops or their counting-rooms. The ab- 
sent Thomases are once more with the de* 
serted flock of disciples, and wonder to 



22 STEAY ARROWS. 

find the risen Saviour there too, with His 
benedictions. Those who seldom prayed, 
are now ready to pour out their souls in 
supplication. The "gift of tongues" has 
descended. The slow of speech have be- 
come eloquent. The timid have grown 
bold. The sluggish are mounting up with 
wings as eagles. A latent power is devel- 
oped in the church, which astounds both 
pastor and people. The prayer-meeting, 
too, becomes a place for communion with 
each other, as well as for communion with 
God. Old differences are forgotten. Old 
wounds are healed. Church members will 
grasp each others' hands, and inquire 
about a neighbor's spiritual health, with 
more solicitude than they manifest in ask» 
ing about a sick friend. They will linger 
together about the hallowed spot, talking 
of the mercies of God to their souls, and 
they will be loath to go away. They 



THE CHURCH THERMOMETER. 23 

are one in heart ; tlie cliurcli is a living 
unity. 

The experienced mariner constantly 
"consults the glass." Brethren! if we 
are wise, we, too, will keep a lookout 
upon the thermometer of the church. A 
pra3^er-meeting "below freezing point" is 
a fatal indication. 



It is recorded of tlie devoted Jolm 
Welch, that he used to keep a plaid upon 
his bed, that he might wrap himself in it 
when he rose during the night for prayer. 
Sometimes his wife found him on the 
ground, weeping. When she complained, 
he would say, "Oh! woman! I have the 
souls of three thousand to answer for, and 
I know not how it is with many of them." 
Possessed with such a sense of responsibil- 
ity to God, and to the people of his charge, 
how can any true minister of the cross 
withhold himself from an earnest devotion 
to his work of arousing souls, and point- 



PULPIT EAKNESTNESS. 26 

ing them to Christ ? He feels his momen- 
tous responsibility during the week while 
preparing the beaten oil for the sanctuary. 
It covers him like a garment. It haunts 
him in the silent watches of the night. It 
absorbs his thoughts, and breathes out in 
every fervid utterance of his closet. 

But it is in the pulpit that the earnest 
ambassador for Christ feels the long-sup- 
pressed solicitude break forth in an over- 
flow of fervid and pathetic expostulations. 
Whatever is most powerful in argument, 
or most winning in entreaty, or most thril- 
ling in appeal, he then seizes upon, and 
appropriates it to his mighty theme. He 
pleads. He warns. He invites. He 
points now to the yawning pit, red with 
the flames of wrath, and now to the cross, 
red with a Saviour's blood. The very gran- 
deur of his theme possesses him. It leads 
him away from the influences of time and 
3 



26 STRAY ARROWS. 

sense about him. For the moment, he is 
no longer in this world. Its illusions have 
all passed away. He is surrounded by 
other and mightier auditors. The light 
of eternity plays about him, and reveals 
the tremendous pomp of the judgment 
scene. To his eye, the awful consumma- 
tion has already come ! The Judge is de- 
scending. The books are opening. The 
heavens are passing away with a great 
noise. The angels are separating the vast 
multitudes to the right hand and to the 
left hand of the Judge, and among them, 
he sees his own hearers. Some of them are 
crowned with the unfading crown; and 
some of them — appalling sight ! — are driv- 
en away wailing to the gates of despair ! 

With such a spectacle before him, 
with the shrieks of his perishing neigh- 
bors ringing in his very ears, can any 
appeal be too importunate, can any en- 



PULPIT EARISTESTNESS. 27 

treaty be too earnest ? Is it any wonder 
that he is ready to throw himself across 
the pathway of the blinded sinner, and 
beseech him not to commit the eternal 
suicide? Even if his overwhelming so- 
licitude move him to tears, he feels that 
it is better for him to weep here than for 
his hearers to weep in hell. 

It was with such emotions that the 
great . Apostle set before the trembling 
Felix the realities of a coming judgment, 
and startled the proud Agrippa on his 
marble throne. It#was with such emo- 
tions that the fervid Whitfield was borne 
on in his impassioned oratory, until his 
auditors became as "dead men beneath 
his feet." Such was the intense agony of 
Bunyan when he "went to his people in 
chains to preach to them in chains ; and 
carried that fire in his own conscience 
which he persuaded them to beware of" 

If an undevout astronomer is "mad," 



28 STRAY ARROWS. 

how mucli more is a listless and stupid 
ambassador of the cross ! Amid all the 
vast assemblage at the judgment-bar, who 
will appear to have been guilty of a 
stranger insanity than the unfaithful man 
who, with the vows of a minister of 
Christ upon his soul, and the truth of 
God in his hands, yet forbore to warn 
men of their coming danger ! That sin- 
ners themselves were mad in this world, 
they will then, of themselves, confess. 
How they came to be guilty of such 
madness they can sonaewhat comprehend. 
But how any man who knew to what a 
hell they were rushing should have neg- 
lected to warn them against it, is enough 
to fill them with amazement and with 
horror. And as they turn away toward 
their long eternity of woe, Oh ! how will 
they vent their fiercest imprecations upon 
that faithless man as a chief accomplice 
in their ruin! 



§uV^ 35nnk fnr SKnn's Snhltet. 

The imagination of man will find its 
aliment. If liigh tilings and pure things 
are not within its reach, it will condescend 
to things of low estate. If it is not re- 
strained, it will run riot ; if it is not ele- 
vated by what is holy, it will be cor- 
rupted and debauched by what is base. 

Here, as in everything else that is 
rational and right, God's transcendent 
Word comes in with its ministrations to 
man's necessities. It feeds the imagina- 
tion with the loftiest sublimities, — with 
the purest and noblest conceptions of the 
beautiful. Let him who would expand, 



30 STRAY ARROWS. 

and elevate, and invigorate his imagina- 
tion to tlie highest degree, go not to the 
creations of human fancy, to the drama 
of Greece, to the oratory of Eome, or to 
the romances of German genius. Let 
him turn away from the Iliad and the 
iEneid, from King Lear and Othello. 
Let him nurture his soul where John 
Milton fed before he gave existence to 
the immortal poem of Paradise. Let him 
contemplate those scenes which inspired 
a Bunyan to his matchless allegory, and 
taught Jeremy Taylor his hearse-like 
melodies. Let him listen to the lyre of 
David, and the rapt sublimities of Isaiah. 
Let him give ear to the mystic utterances 
of Habakkuk, and gaze on the gorgeous 
panoramas of the Apocalypse. Let him 
open his soul to that " oldest choral 
melody, the book of Job, so like the sum- 
mer midnight with its seas and stars." 



god's book. 31 

Here is enougli to stimulate the most 
torpid soul, enougli to task tlie most as- 
piring intellect, enough to gratify the 
most fastidious taste, enough to satisfy the 
cravings of all created mind, whether 
human or angelic. Go to the Bible ! ye 
who yearn for the beautiful and the en- 
nobling, unmingled with the degmding 
and the poisonous. Spend your nightly 
studies on the word of Grod, man of 
taste, and lover of the lovely ! N'o- 
where else will your intellectual hunger- 
ings be so fully satisfied. " While the 
King sitteth at His table. His spikenard 
sendeth forth the smell thereof His 
plants are an orchard of pomegTanates 
with pleasant fruits ; a fountain of gar- 
dens, a well of living waters, and streams 
out of Lebanon." 



A ' DEY, witliered flower lies by me, 
which I gathered on a sweet July morn- 
ing, beside the door- way of AYordsworth's 
cottage on Eydal Mount, and it tempts 
me to a word of reminiscence of this ex- 
traordinary man. I had come up from 
Ambleside to spend an hour with him, 
as he always gave a hearty welcome to 
the few Americans who wandered in to 
his secluded home. His cottage stands 
at the summit of a deeply-shaded hill, 
and is covered all over with ivy and 
with woodbine. The cottage was just 
what I expected in appearance, but not 



THE FLOWER OF RYDAL. 83 

its illustrious occupant. Instead of a 
grave, pensive man, in scholastic black, I 
found a most affable, smiling, lovable old 
man, dressed in a well-worn coat of Hue 
(with metal buttons,) and checked breech- 
es, and with a broad-brimmed white hat 
l3dng by his side. He looked like a 
substantial farmer, just come in for his 
" nooning ;" and his greeting had a 
broad heartiness in it, that took me all 
aback. His face was long and thin — 
his complexion highly florid — his hair 
fell upon his shoulders, and over his 
half-closed eyes he wore a pair of large 
green spectacles. 

Without any preliminaries, he entered 
at once into a genial and most familiar 
conversation, talked of America with 
great enthusiasm, particularly of his 
friend Washington Irving, and of Mrs. 
Sigourney, who had once paid him a 



34 STRAY ARROWS. 

deliglitful visit. For years lie had hoped 
to see our country for himself, but the 
duties of a small ofl&ce which he held, 
and on which he was partially dependent, 
had prevented the undertaking. 

His library was not large, but among 
his books he showed me with evident 
pleasure a beautiful copy of Professor 
Reed's American edition of his poetry, 
which he preferred above any English 
edition that had yet been produced. 
Had Wordsworth been a richer man, he 
would hardly have been a great collector 
of books. When a visitor once said to 
his servant, " Is this your master's 
study?" "No, sir," replied the man, 
" my master's study is out ofdoorsy 

I was not surprised, therefore, to hear 
presently from the old poet an invitation 
to walk out into his grounds, and see 
the neighboring views. As we moved 



THE I^LOWEH OF EYDAL. 85 

about through the well-trimmed walks, 
he talked on with the most lively enthu- 
siasm. " Yonder is Rydal Water." And 
there it lay, a mere shellful of water, 
environed round by bold towering hills. 
In front, over the steeple of the parish 
church, was Grassmere^ the lake along 
whose beach Coleridge was wont to wan- 
der, and beside which he composed the 
"Ancient Mariner." Beyond was Hel- 
vellyn^ the mountain king, with his ret- 
inue of a hundred hills, and at his feet 
lay EoBEET SouRiEY. 

Of all these scenes, and the great men 
who had haunted them during years 
gone by, the aged man talked on until 
we reached again his cottage door. He 
then bade me farewell, with a parting 
" God bless you ;" I pulled this little 
flower, (then fresh and bright,) and turned 
slowly away from Eydal Mount. That 



36 STRAY ARROWS 

cottage is now a lonely spot. The ven- 
erable interpreter of nature no longer 
leans on his staff beneath that door-way. 
Within a stone's throw of that " Mount" 
is a plain tomb, on which more than one 
moistened eye has read the name of 
William Wordsworth. 



li^ the sequestered parish of Anworth, 
in Scotland, there was standing, not many 
years since — and perhaps still stands to 
this hour — a quaint, old, rustic church. 
The swallows, during many a summer, 
built their nests in the crannies of its rude 
roof The weather-beaten walls were gar- 
nitured with moss, and festooned with 
creeping vines. The rusty key of that 
kirk door still hangs as a precious relic in 
the new College of Edinburgh. The old 
oaken pulpit is still preserved. And well 
it may be. For m that pulpit once stood 
a man, of whom it used to be said, that he 
4 



38 STKAY ARROWS. 

"is always praying, a?i^a?/s preacMng, al- 
ways visiting tlie sick, always catechizing, 
and always writing and studying." He it 
was who uttered that memorable saying 
to his beloved people : " My witness is 
above, that your heaven would be two 
heavens to me, and the salvation of you 
all, as two salvations to me." That was 
the pulpit of Samuel Eutherford. 

The savory discourses once preached in 
that hallowed place, to weeping and melt- 
ed auditors, have, for the most part, per- 
ished long ago. But still that pastor is 
remembered, and will be while there are 
loving Christian hearts on earth. His 
world-known "Letters" will be Euther- 
ford's enduring memorial. They were 
written more than two centuries ago, and 
yet the smell of the myrrh and the cassia 
has never departed. They have but little 
historical interest. They are not argu- 



HOLY RUTHERFORD. 39 

mentative. They are not descriptive. 
They are ^j?i?'e devotion — the very pith and 
essence of a soul that was all alive with 
love to Christ — the outflow of a sweet 
fountain that knew no intermission. Those 
who have read the biography of the saint- 
ed McChejme, will remember that Euth- 
erford's Letters were the constant com- 
panion of his private hours ; and it must 
have been a rare book that McCheyne 
would allow to accompany his Bible into 
his closet. Cecil used to style Eutherford 
^'one of his classics." Eichard Baxter 
said, "Hold off the Bible, and such a 
book the world never saw !" This sounds 
extravagant to those who have never gone 
themselves into this orchard, and plucked 
the luscious fruit, and never sat down 
themselves at the banquet, where the 

" Ripe apples drop about our heads, 
And the purple clusters of the vine, 
Upon our mouths do crush their wine." 



40 STEAY ARROWS. 

In reading the beautiful edition of these 
Letters published by the Carters, we are 
irresistibly tempted to draw our pencil 
over the margin of nearly every page. 
In opening the goodly volume before us, 
we find a. mark beside this passage: — 
"Welcome, welcome Jesus, in what way 
soever Thou comest, if we can but get a 
sight of Thee. And sure I am that it is 
better to be sick, providing that Christ 
come to the bedside, and draw aside the 
curtains, and say, ' Courage ! I am thy sal- 
vation!^ than to enjoy kisty health, .and 
never to be visited of God." In the same 
strain he writes afterwards : " His most 
loved ones are most tried. The hntel- 
stones and pillars of his new Jerusalem 
suffer more knocks of God's hammer than 
the common side-wall stones." Some- 
times his rapt soul seems in a sort of de- 
lirium of heavenly love, as when in wri- 



HOLY RUTHERFORD. 41 

ting to Lady Kenmure, lie says : — " Hon- 
orable lady, keep your first love. Hold 
the first match with that sonl-delighting, 
lovely Bridegroom, our sweet, sweet Je- 
sus, the Eose of Sharon, and the sweetest 
smelled rose in all His Father's garden. 
I would not exchange one smile of His 
lovely face for kingdoms. Let others take 
their silly, feckless heaven in this life. 
Put up your heart ! Shout for joy ! 
Yom- King is coming to fetch you to His 
Father's house." In writing of the inde- 
structibility of the Church, he says: — 
"The bush has been burning these five 
thousand years, hut no man yet saw the 
ashes of that ftrer 

For that Church he underwent sore and 
harassing persecutions. He was confined 
for two years at Aberdeen, but "found 
Jesus sweet to him in that place." At St. 
Andrews he spent some years, both as 
4* 



42 STEAY AEBOWS. 

professor and as preacher. From his col- 
legiate chair he was deposed by the Gov- 
ernment, and his works were burned in 
Edinburgh by the hands of the common 
hangman. He was summoned before Par- 
liament on a false charge of treason. But 
the summons came too late. He was on 
his dying-bed, and calmly remarked, that 
he had got another summons before a su- 
perior Judge, and sent this message : — " I 
behove to answer my first summons ; and 
ere your day arrive, I will be where few. 
kings and great folks ever come." 

On the 20th of March, 1661, Euther- 
ford laid aside his earthly vestments to 
put on the wedding-garment in the Sa- 
viour's presence. His last words were, 
"Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's 
land !" He seemed to be already stand- 
ing in the pearly gateway. The Parlia- 
ment, on hearing that he was dying, voted 



HOLY EUTHERFORD. 43 

that lie should not die in the College as a 
Professor. Lord Burleigh arose, and said, 
" You cannot vote him out of heaven /" 



Theee are many ways of preaching 
Christ's gospel without choosing a text, 
or standing in a pnlpit. This glorious 
work is not restricted to any time, or 
place, or class of individuals. A "Wilber- 
force could proclaim the gospel of love on 
the platform of Exeter Hall, or the floor 
of Parliament-House, though he never 
wore a surplice, and never had a prelate's 
ordaining hand upon his honored head. 
Thomas Cranfield preached <co the boister- 
ous rabble of Wapping, till, in their de- 
light, they were ready to reward him with 
"three cheers" for his thrilHng exhorta- 



A DEATH-BED PKEACHER. 45 

tion. Hannah More preadied Christ in 
the dramng-room ; and Ehzabeth Fry in 
the prison-cell. Harlan Page scattering 
tracts throngh a city work-shop, Nettle- 
ton whispering his solemn words to weep- 
ing souls in an Inqniry-meeting, the Dai- 
ryman's Daughter murmurmg the name 
of Jesus with her faint dying voice, and 
the Shepherd of Sahsbury -plain, leaning 
on his crook to talk about eternity to 
a passer-by, were all intensely earnest 
' preachers of righteousness.' The church 
has had few more faithful preachers than 
Thomas Halyburton, and his most im- 
pressive discourses were delivered on a 
dying bed. " This is the best pulpit," said 
he, " that ever I was in ; I am laid on this 
bed for this very end, that I may com- 
mend my Lord." 

The careful and erudite sermons that 
were prepared for the pulpit of Ceres and 



46 STRAY ARROWS. 

St. Andrews are now well nigli forgotten ; 
but tlie savory discourses that fell from 
his lips during that last month of his holy 
life, will live, we trust, till the last saint 
shall go down to the dark river. Let him 
who would learn how the sting of death 
may be plucked away, and how (to use 
Halyburton's own phrase) ' a frail mortal 
may shake hands with the king of terrors,' 
let him read the closing chapters of that 
Memoir which the Free Church of Scot- 
land has reproduced for the edification of 
her children. What a spirit must that 
man have possessed who could have re- 
corded the death of a favorite son in such 
words as these ! 

''March 23, 1712. The Lord's day, a 
day to be remembered by me. Oh ! my 
soul never forgot what this day I reached. 
My soul had smiles that almost wasted 
nature. My kind colleague and I prayed 



A DEATH-BED PREACHER. 47 

alternately ; Oh such a sweet day I About 
half an hour after the Sabbath, my child, 
after a sharp conflict, slept pleasantly in 
Jesus, to whom pleasantly he was so often 
given." 

To his wife, Avho stood weeping by his 
bedside, he once said, "My sweet bird, 
are you there ? I am no more thine. I 
am the Lord's. On the day I took you 
by the hand, I wist not how I could ever 
get my heart off you again ; but now I 
have got it done. Do not weep; you 
should rather rejoice. Eejoice with me, 
and let us exalt His name together. We 
shall be in the same family in heaven; 
but you must even stay a while behind, 
and take care of God's bairns." At an- 
other time he remarked to her, after a 
night of agonizing pain — " Jesus came to 
me in the third watch of the night, walk- 
ing upon the waters ; and He said to me, 



48 STRAY ARROWS. 

' I am Alplia and Omega, tlie beginning 
and the end, I have the keys of liell and 
of death,' " and then he added, " He stilled 
the tempest in m3rsonl, and lo ! there was 
a sweet calm 1" 

When the Eighty Fourth ?salm had 
been sung for him, he said, " I always had 
a mistnned voice, but, which was worst 
of all, a mistimed heart ; but shortly when 
I join the temple service above, there 
shall not be, world without end, one string 
of my affections out of tune." To his aged 
elder he remarked — "James, ye are an 
old man, and I am dying ; yet the child 
is going to die an hundred years old. I 
am hke a shock of corn fully ripe. I have 
ripened fast under the bright Sun of 
righteousness, and I have had brave 
showers !" 

We have read of many sublime dis- 
plays of courage in the dying hour, but 



A DEM'H-BED PREACHER. 49 

never met witli such a calm confronting 
of the king of terrors as the following pas- 
sage displays. "I am not acting as a 
fool/' said he to his physician, "but I 
have weighed eternity during the last 
night. I have looked on death as stripped 
of all things pleasant to nature; 1 have 
considered the spade and the grave^ and every 
circumstance in it that is terrible to na- 
ture ! and under the view of all these, I 
found that in the way of God which gave 
me satisfaction — not merely a rational sat- 
isfaction, but a heart-engaging power that 
makes me rejoice J^ 

On the morning of the 28d of Septem- 
ber, he went into the dark valley. Yet 
he did not go alone, nor did the calm sun- 
shine withdraw from his pathway — for in 
the " even-time, it was light about him." 
Just before he died, he said, " I am think- 
ing on the pleasant spot of earth that I 
5 



50 STRAY ARROWS. 

will get to lie in, beside Mr. Eutherford, 
and Principal Anderson. I will come in 
as the little one among them, and I will 
get my little George in my hand, and Oh ! 
im luill he a group of honnie dust P^ Du- 
ring the last six hours his voice failed 
him. But his angelic face was eloquent, 
and when he could not speak, he gently 
clapped his hands in triumph ! So died 
the holy Halyburton — and on all the face 
of our earth the ministering angels of God 
beheld that day no other scene that was 
more like the heaven which they had left. 



3Ht(CllBpB. 



Since the hour when the "Beloved 
Disciple" went up to lay his head once 
more — and forever — on the bosom of his 
Lord, the church has beheld no lovelier 
spirit than that of Egbert Murray 
McCheyne. His beautiful biography, 
which is finding its way into every hamlet 
in the land, is one of the richest treasures 
which the Great Head of the Church has 
given to his drooping and hungered flock 
in this century of time. I know not 
where such another "living epistle" can 
be found as the record of this young 
saint's shining pilgrimage. The biogra- 



52 STEAY AEEOWS. 

pliy of the apostolic Brainerd saddens u^ 
by its pervading tone of melanclioly. 
Heroic Martyn^s life is too painful to be 
read without tears. To spend an hour 
"witH Payson is almost like sitting at the 
feet of the great apostle; but his piety 
was mournfully tinged by a sombre re- 
flection from a mind somewhat too morbid. 
But to McCheyne was vouchsafed their 
heavenly spirit, without their trials to 
sadden it or to shade its beauty. His 
piety was eminently cheerful and light- 
some. He dwelt, while here below, far 
away from the damps that rise about 
Doubting Castle, and hard by the Beulah 
where the su.nlight ever falls. Through 
all the animating record of his life there is 
almost nothing to pain or to dishearten us. 
As most of my readers doubtless know, 
Eobert Murray McCheyne was a young 
preacher of the Scotch national church 



McCHEYNE. 53 

wtio was called away to his crown just 
before the church had been sundered by 
the memorable, and glorious "Exodus" 
from the Erastian establishment. He en- 
tered the vineyard at twenty-one, and la- 
bored nine years. The scene of his apos- 
tolic toils, and prayers was Dundee. 
There he sowed his precious seed, and 
every returning season of communion 
witnessed some sheaves brought in with 
rejoicing. To pray, and to search the 
word of God — to prepare the beaten oil 
for the sanctuary, and to saturate his soul 
with divine truth — to plead with dying 
men, and to stand between the living and 
the dead; these formed the varied but 
yet unchanging employment of his fervid 
spirit. 

We have never been brought in con- 
tact with a heart that seemed to be more 
deeply impregnated with earnest love for 
5* 



54 STRAY ARROWS. 

Christ. This was the master-passion of 
the soul. His Saviour's business was his, 
and he was continually about it. " This 
one thing" he did. Every day he gave to 
Christ. His biographer tells us that he 
used to seal his letters with a sun going 
down behind the mountains, and the mot- 
to over it, " The night cometh." For the 
souls of men he was intensely watchful ; 
and like our own Harlan Page he had a 
word in season for every one. Prayer 
was his vital breath. The secret of that 
vigorou.s and blooming piety whose " leaf 
never withered" is to be found in the per- 
petual baptisms which his soul received at 
the mercy-seat. Prayer, instead of being 
a penance, was his most chosen delight. 
He "gave himself" to it. He prayed be- 
fore he sat down to his studies — before he 
went out to visit the sick — before he en- 
tered on any work for his Master great or 



MCCHEYNE. 55 

small. Like good Jolin Welsh he rose 
from his bed to commune with the Saviour 
in the night-watches. He speaks also of 
having a "scheme of prayer," and of mark- 
ing the names of missionaries on the map 
that he might pray for them in course and 
by name! His Bible he loved like the 
mercy-seat ; and when he read it, it was 
with the eager avidity of one who is delv- 
ing in a golden mine with the shining ore 
laid bare at ever}^ stroke of the mattock. 
" When you write," said he to a friend, 
"tell me the meaning of Scriptures. One 
gem from that ocean is worth all the peb- 
bles of earthly streams." 
r- Conversing with one of his parishioners 
not long since, I was not surprised to 
learn that the striking peculiarity of his 
preaching was persuasive tenderness. His 
sermons were "artless spillings of the 
heart," Once when a brother minister 



56 STEAY AKROWS. 

told him tliat he had been preaching 
from that awful passage, "The wicked 
shall be turned into hell," he inquired 
with some emotion, " Were you able to 
preach it with tenderness V^ The sermons 
which McCheyne has left behind him 
are imbued with this warm, affectionate 
spirit, and to those young men who "fry 
the unction out of their sermons" by 
long lamp-labor we can recommend no 
happier specimens of simple and pungent 
preaching. 

It is now eight years since this devoted 
young saint went up to be with Jesus. 
His fatal sickness was brought on by vis- 
iting the victims of a prevailing epidemic. 
He lingered for many days, and the clos- 
ing hours of his life were overshadowed 
by the delirium of the fever. In his ra- 
tional moments he listened to the reading 
of the word, and even the wanderings of 



MCCHEYNE. 57 

his mind were broken by occasional ejac- 
ulations of fervent prayer. On tlie morn- 
ing of the twenty-fifth of March (1843) 
he sank gently into a sleep which deep- 
ened, and deepened until his spirit passed 
without a groan, to the presence of his 
God. The tidings of his death fell cold 
on many a heart, and every eye in his 
parish was red with weeping. The road 
was thronged by the thousands who gath- 
ered to his burial ; they laid him in his 
narrow bed amid sobs, and gushing tears, 
and even to this day his smitten flock 
often speak his name with moistened eye, 
and lips trembling with emotion. 

" Oh ! star untimely set, 

"Why should we weep for thee ? 
Thy bright and dewy coronet 
Is rising o'er the sea !" 



In spite of our practical tendency to in- 
credulity we ought not to allow ourselves 
to believe tliat any fervent, importunate 
prayer wMcli lias for its object tlie glory 
of God, and wliicli is offered in tlie name 
of the Mediator, remains forever un- 
answered. The answer may be long de- 
layed. It may not come in the way that 
was looked for. The person who prayed 
may not recognize the return of his own 
petition. But that the "fervent effectual 
prayer of the righteous man" is ever 
wholly unavailing we should be loath to 
admit. 



ANSWERING PRAYER. 59 

Some prayers we cannot expect to see 
answered at once. Those who plead 
" day by day" for the spiritual regenera- 
tion of the world must not suppose that 
ere they go hence, they themselves are to 
see all the heathen nations given to our 
ascended Master for His inheritance. Yet 
their prayers are not forgotten. Those 
pleading saints will yet behold the glo- 
rious fulfilment of their desires from 
the battlements of heaven. How many 
prayers do we see manifestly answered 
even long after the saint who breathed 
them into the ear of Jesus has gone to lay 
his weary head on that Saviour's breast. 
A dying mother commits her beloved boy 
to a covenant-keeping God. She has 
often borne that child on the arms of faith 
to the mercy-seat. He has been the ohild 
of many prayers ; and in the feeble utter- 
ances of her passing spirit another, and a 



60 STRAY ARROWS. 

last petition is breathed forth that Christ 
would have mercy on his sonl. Years roll 
away. The sod has grown green, and the 
rank grass has long waved over that 
mother's tomb. In some distant land, 
mayhap many hundred miles from that 
spot, a full-grown man who has long been 
ripening in sin is seen bowed in prayer. 
He is crying out of the depths of an agon- 
ized spirit, Ood he merciful to me a sinner ! 
Behold he prayeth, and his prayer is the 
answer of that fervent petition which his 
dying mother uttered many long years 
before. Her prayer was recorded in 
God's book of remembrance ; and but for 
that, we know not that the prayer of that 
son would have ever ascended there. 

The Scriptures famish a kindred in- 
stance in the case of Stephen, who pray- 
ed during the agonies of dpath for his 
vindictive persecutors. And when Ste- 



ANSWERING PRAYER. 61 

plien was in Paradise, tlie very Saul wlio 
was an accomplice in liis destruction, 
becomes a trophy of redeeming grace. 
The early church prayed for things 
which did not come about for centuries ; 
and at this very hour men of faith are 
besieging the mercy-seat for blessings 
that will, without question, dawn upon 
their descendants. Let praying fathers 
and mothers who are growing faint of 
heart, give heed to this. Let desponding 
churches give heed to it before they 
abandon their places of social prayer, 
where their hearts have often "burned 
within them." Far above the dark cloud 
of their discouragement is written as in 
the clear upper sky, "He that asketh 
receiveth ; and he that seeketh findeth ; 
and to him that knocketh it shall be 
opened.'^ 

II. Other prayers are answered at the 
6 



62 STRAY ARROWS. 

time of their utterance, but in a way so Tin- 
looked for, that he who offered them is 
inclined to think that the very opposite 
of what he asked for has befallen him. 
One individual prays that he may be en- 
abled to glorify God. Ere he is aware, 
some heavy calamity comes crashing 
down upon him, prostrating him to the 
dust. His fortune takes wings. His 
schemes of promotion are blasted. A 
favorite child is taken. His hopes are 
" withered like grass." God has an- 
swered his prayer, but has answered it, 
as the Psalmist says, " by terrible things." 
From under the overwhelming pressure 
of affliction he flees to Jesus his com- 
forter, and oh ! how his love is kindled 
by the contact! How he glorifies God 
in the furnace which is purging away 
\e dross of selfishness and worldliness, 



ANSWERING PRAYER. 63 

and making his pure gold to sMne with, 
tenfold brightness ! 

I once saw an earnest inquirer who 
was praying most importunately for faith 
in Christ, and for peace to his. troubled 
soul. But while he prayed, a cloud of 
blackness gathered across his horizon ! 
And against that cloud, which swung 
like a funeral-pall before his vision, 
played the sharp lightnings of Almighty 
wrath. The thunders of God's law roared 
against him. Instead of peace came only 
the sword. Instead of the calm which 
he sought, came the fearful tempest ; and 
under the stress of its dark terrors the 
|)oor baffled soul betakes himself to the 
"covert" which Christ has raised on Cal- 
vary. There he finds the peace he so 
earnestly prayed for. There the long- 
sought confidence in Jesus pours its ful- 
ness through the soul. His prayer was 



64 STEAY ARROWS. 

answered — ^first by "terrible tilings," but 
at last by the very blessings whicli he 
desired. And without that storm, the 
true calm would have never come. Had 
the sinner not have been led to that 
frightful view of his own guilt, and his 
liability to condemnation, he might never 
have gone to Christ, and thus could not 
have known true peace. As he looks 
back over the dark valley of sorrow 
through which the divine hand has won- 
drously led him, and sees that no other 
way would have brought him to the 
cross, he feels a renewed assurance that 
God is the hearer of prayer — that he that 
asketh ivill yet receive, and he that 
seeketh will always find. 

III. But we may also observe how the 
petitions of believers are often answered 
according to their intention^ and not ac- 
cording to the strict letter of the request. 



ANSWERING PRAYER. 65 

The utterer of tlie prayer sought only 
the glory of God, but in his ignorance 
asked for wrong things. His prayer was 
not rejected, however. It was heard. It 
was answered. But the blessing granted 
has been something very different from 
what the believer expected. There has 
been in this case what an old Avriter calls 
'' a transmutation of the thing desired into 
some other great blessing of the same 
kind; for Grod often thus improves, and 
lays out the precious stock of believers' 
prayers to the best advantage, that the 
greatest returns may accrue to them." 
Jacob, when he blesses the sons of Jo- 
seph, lays his right hand on the son who 
stood at his left side. " So God takes 
off His hand of blessing from the thing 
we prayed for, and lays it on another 
which is more for our good, or His own 
glory." 



66 STEAY ARKOWS. 

The case of Paul is a beautiful illustra- 
tion of this. He is sorely afflicted by a 
"thorn in his flesh." What the nature 
of the affliction was, we know not. Per- 
haps a severe malady. Perhaps the con- 
tinued enticement of some lust. Perhaps 
a besetting sin. Perhaps some chronic 
distortion of his bodily frame, brought on 
by excitement and suffering, which ex- 
posed him to derision, and to which he 
may have alluded when he speaks of an 
" infirmity in the flesh" which the Gala- 
tians " did not despise." He beseeches 
the Lord in three earnest petitions that 
this "thorn" might depart from him. 
His prayers are heard ; they are answer- 
ed. But instead of the removal of the 
thorn, comes the cheering assurance, " My 
grace is suflflcient for thee." God does 
not take away the trial, but gives him 
all that is needed to make it endurable ; 



ANSWERIN^G PRAYER. 67 

and thus the Divine glory and Paul's 
spiritual well-being were more certainly 
advanced than if the prayer had been 
answered according to its letter. 

We have only glanced at this fruitful 
subject, yet we have seen how essential 
Faith is from first to last. There must 
be active faith to quicken the soul to 
prayer. When the believer has come to 
the mercy-seat, the utterances of his lips 
must be the outpourings of faith. He 
must believe that God is, and that He is 
the rewarder of all who diligently seek 
Him. After the request has been pre- 
sented, there must be an importunate 
faith to urge it, and an expecting faith to 
go up and look for the blessing. If it 
comes not at once, faith is needful to as- 
sure the soul that an answer is kept back 
in wisdom and in mercy. And if the 
answer comes, but comes in a shape en- 



68 STRAY ARROWS. 

tirely unlooked-for, it is often tlie hard- 
est trial of faith to believe tliat this is the 
answer^ and just what our Master's honor 
and our good require. 

But that God is the Hearer of Prayer 
who shall dare to doubt? The skeptic 
here must seal his vision, "lest he come 
to the light" and be persuaded. He 
must mutilate most sadly the narrative 
of Grod's providential dealings. He must 
erase from his Bible the animating record 
of Jacob's midnight struggles, the thrill- 
ing scenes of Elijah's wrestlings on Car- 
mel and at Zarephath, the "evening 
oblations" of Daniel, and the angelic 
deliverance of Peter from the prison-cell. 
He must even give the lie to that Inef- 
fable Witness who descended Himself 
from the upper sanctuary, and had there 
beheld the gi'acious reception of his chil- 
dren's prayers, and who has said to all 



ANSWERING PRAYER. 69 

trembling, sorrowing, doubting saints, 

" Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye 

shall find, knock and it shall be opened 
unto you." 



We missed him when he was gone. 
When he went hence he left something 
more than a tomb behind him. He left a 
goodly heritage of holy deeds. There is 
a fragrant perfume yet lingering about 
his 'precious' memory — the trail of light 
that followed his luminous pathway has 
not yet died away from our saddened 
vision. 

He was a legible Christian. There was 
no mistaking him. He never stood upon 
debatable ground — he never required 
one to search the church records to see 
whether he were a "professor of re- 
ligion." We &\\feU his religion. 



THE ACTIVE CHRISTIAN. 71 

You might follow liim at any time by 
the fragrance of his Christ-like deeds of 
well-doing. You might enter the house 
of sorrow and see that he had been there 
by the weeping eyes once more dried, and 
the broken hearts bound up. You might 
enter the abode of poverty, and see that 
he had been there by the plentiful stores 
which his bounty had left behind, by the 
food and the raiment, by the consoling 
tract left upon the table, and the Bible set 
there, as a household-lamp to cheer the 
thick darkness. If you saw a group of 
children gathered by the way-side, you 
might conjecture that he was there "in 
the midst of them," opening his pack- 
age of little books, and dealing them out 
to the happy little throng. "We all felt 
him in every good enterprise — in the so- 
cial prayer-circle, in the Sabbath-school. 



72 STRAY ARROWS. 

in the cliurch, and (quite as mucli as any- 
Avliere else) at his own heartli-stone. 

But now there is a great blank in our 
social gatherings, in our evening meetings, 
in everything. We wait in vain for his 
beseeching tremulous voice that well we 
knew " sank in the ear of Jesus." The 
Teachers' prayer-meeting is not the same 
thing that it once was, now that he is 
gone. And as for the little flock of cot- 
tagers that used to gather in to the 
Widow M.'s Wednesday evening meeting, 
they are left as sheep without a shepherd. 
The good old mother in Israel will hear 
no longer the cheerful salutation that was 
wont to greet her, as his slender form ap- 
peared in her door-way, sometimes cov- 
ered with snow, sometimes dripping with 
the rain. She need not set out the little 
table any longer, with its white napkin, 
and the tattered Bible and "Village 



THE ACTIVE CHRISTIAN. 73 

Hymns" upon it. "Poor Henry!" she 
used to say, as lie closed her cottage-door, 
"I fear he is not long for this world; 
there is a red spot on his cheek that looks 
like consumption ; he is ripening fast for 
heaven." 

It was but a little time since a long pro- 
cession wound its way, with man}^ a weep- 
ing eye, out of the village church-yard. 
That grave, beside which you may some- 
times see an aged woman in black, bend- 
ing at the hour of tvv^ilight, is his. There 
is a touching pathos in the date — " ctged 
twenty-four years' His slight form and 
boyish expression made him look younger 
than that, but his piety had the ripe ma- 
turity of threescore. 

"How short his day ! the glorious prize 
To om- sad hearts and weeping eyes 
Appear'd too quickly won ; 



74 STRAY ARROWS. 

The soldier rushed into the field, 
With arm invincible to wield 
The Spirit's sword, the Spirit's shield, 
When lo ! the fight was done 1" 



€^i iBlf-BflnmBii. 

Not many years since an eminent 
London clergyman observed among liis 
regular auditors a young man whose ap- 
pearance excited in him an unwonted in- 
terest. He took pains to learn the young 
strangers history ; and found that he was 
the son of pious parents, and had been 
trained to respect the ordinances of reli- 
gion, A devout mother had added to 
her prayers the fervent precept, " My son, 
if sinners entice thee, consent thou not." 

At length the young man was missed 
from his accustomed place in the sanctu- 
ary. The watchful eye of the pastor 



.'O STRAY ARROWS. 

sought for him in vain. He had met 
with a company of witty and engaging 
skeptics, who had persuaded him to aban- 
don the house of Grod for the more " man- 
ly" entertainments of their infidel club- 
room, where the ribaldries of Paine were 
rendered more palatable by the lively 
jest, and the exhilarating glass. His con- 
science stung him, but their merry laugh 
soon drowned the troublesome remon- 
strance. He proved to be an apt scholar 
in the ways of sin. His sabbath instruc- 
tions among the skeptics soon prepared 
him for the haunts of revelry and for 
those chambers which lie hard by the 
door of hell. — A short career of reckless 
dissipation did its work of ruin upon his 
slight and delicate frame. 

His former pastor, who had well nigh 
forgotten him, was one day surprised by 
an invitation to visit the unhappy youth 



THE SELF-DOOMED. 77 

on his dying bed. He found Mm sinking 
rapidly, and sinking without hope. As 
the man of God approached the bedside 
the young man hid his face in the clothes, 
and refused to speak to him. Finding it 
impossible to draw a word from the 
wretched victim of remorse who was just 
about entering eternity in such a state of 
sullen despair, the pastor offered a fervent 
prayer, and turned away. He reached 
the door. His hand was upon the latch ; 
when the young man suddenly rose in the 
bed, and beckoned him to return. He 
went back and leaned his head over the 
bed to receive the message. The young 
man threw his arms about him, and draw- 
ing his head close to his lips, whispered in 
convulsive accents, "I'm damned," and 
then sunk back silent on his pillow. No 
farther eflPorts, or entreaties could rouse 
him. The heart- wrung pastor plead with 
7* 



78 STRAY ARROYOS. 

him, but in vain. Having pronounced 
Ms own awful doom, his lips refused to 
speak again ; and before the clock struck 
the hour of midnight, his unhappy soul 
was in another world. 

Young man ! as you read the appalling 
narrative of that poor profligate's doom, 
you may be reading your own ! His his- 
tory may be yours. If your feet have for- 
saken the house of God, if you have been 
seen on the seat of the scorn er, if you 
have returned home at the midnight 
hour from the card-table or the drinking- 
circle, you have good cause to tremble. 
Persist in your course of self-destruction, 
and you may meet that young man in the 
world of despair. Partners in misery, you 
may, to all eternity, curse yourselves as 
the authors of your own ruin. 



/aitl; ml !»nrfe. 

The second chapter of tlie Epistle by 
James seems, to my mind, to describe a 
spiritual wedding. We are "bidden to a 
marriage." And as at the olden marriage 
in Cana of Gralilee, the Holy Master is 
present, and consummates the nuptials. 
The parties to be united are but symbolic 
personages, and yet are real and life-like 
too. The bride is young and beautiful — 
ever young, and ever clothed upon with 
light as with a garment. Like Milton's 
Eve, she was — 

" For softness formed, and sweet attractive grace." 

Her face is clear as the day — her look is 



80 STEAY ARROWS. 

firm, and yet trustful. Slie is not of the 
earth, but Heaven-born, and wears her 
celestial jDarentage in every lineament of 
her radiant countenance. Her name is 
Faith. She is the daughter of God. 

And beside her stands one whose lusty 
form was made for deeds of daring and 
endurance. He is sinewy and athletic. 
There is valor in his eye, and "cunning in 
his ten fingers," and strength in his right 
arm. He was created to act, to do, to 
suffer. He was formed for strife and 
struggle. His name is Action". 

With solemn rites the two are joined in 
wedlock. They are both to love and both 
to obey. They are always to live, and 
move, and suffer, and conquer together. 
They are to be the fruitful parents of ev- 
erj^thing good on earth, On them, Avhile 
united, Jehovah pronounces a "blessing" 
richer than that which gladdened the 



FAITH AND WORKS. 81 

nuptials of Isaac and Eebekah, or of Jacob 
iuid Leali. While united^ they are to live, 
and grow, and conquer. When separated^ 
they are to droop and perish. For each 
other, and in each other, and with each 
other, their days of struggle and of victo- 
ry are to be passed, nntil time shall be no 
longer. And so Faith and Works were 
coupled by Infinite Wisdom, — and in the 
presence of the world it was solemnly an- 
nounced, " What God hath joined togeth- 
er, let not man put asunder." 

From that union have sprung a glorious 
progeny. All the mighty deeds which 
liave ennobled and elevated humanity 
own that parentage. Faith and Action 
have been the source, under Grod, of every- 
thing good, and great, and enduring, in 
the Church of Christ; the very Church 
itself exists through them. The early 
Apostles went out with their glad evan- 



82 STRAY ARROWS. 

gel to the nations, under this double im- 
pulse, and with this double watchword. 
It was not enough to " believe my gospel ;" 
they were also to " preach my gospel." It 
was not enough to love in the heart ; the 
whole life was to be an embodiment and 
outflow of love. It was not enough to 
have a meek and gentle spirit ; the young- 
church was to return good for evil, and 
thus overcome evil with good. The 
church was not only to be sound in heart, 
but active in limb and sinew also. It 
was to be a militant church, contending 
earnestly for the faith delivered to the 
saints — a courageous church, standing fast 
for the gospel — a suppliant church, pray- 
ing without ceasing — a busy church, re- 
deeming the time — a patient church, bear- 
ing with all long sufferings — and a con- 
quering church, to evangelize all nations. 
Its model men were men of faith and ac- 



FAITH AND WORKS. 83 

tion. Throiigli tliat apostolic Iliad, the 
great Apostle seems to fly like a tliunder- 
bolt, kindling, and consuming ! He is all 
a-blaze with zeal. At Lystra rebuking 
the deluded worshippers— at Jerusalem 
confronting the Pharisee, and the rulers 
on the castle stairs— at Cesan^a startling 
Agrippa on his tribunal— ^at Eome preach- 
ing the reviled gospel, both in his " own 
hired house," and in Caesar's palace — he is 
everywhere the believer in full action, 
with the heart to feel, and the hand to do. 
And such have been God's true evangC" 
lists ever since. Such was Luther, the 
flaming inconoclast of Europe, — ^to-day 
writing theses and commentaries, and to- 
morrow translating the Scriptures, or hurl- 
ing fresh invective against the black dom- 
ination of the man of sin. Such were 
Baxter, the indefatigable pastor, Edwards, 
the perpetual thinker, Keander, the per- 



84 STRAY ARROWS. 

petual student, Owen, tlie perpetual writer, 
Knox, the untiring reformer, AYhitfield, 
the untiring preacher, and Chahiiers, who 
appears to have been pastor, preacher, 
writer, thinker, and reformer, all in one. 
Brethren ! such may God honor us in be- 
ing. A faith, sound as that of the West- 
minster Assembly will not save the dying 
Avorld around us, unless it flows out into 
action. For " wilt thou know, oh ! man. !'" 
and all men in all God's heritage, that 
" as the body without the spirit is dead, 
so faith without works is dead also." 



Among cliaracter-painters, Bunjan de- 
serves a place in the highest rank. 
Shakspeare had to do with living men, 
and Biinyan with personifications, yet in 
the wonderful tinker's hands these im- 
personifications hecome living men. To 
all who read the Pilgrim's Progress, old 
and young, learned and unlearned, the 
multitude of characters that throng its 
pages, are actual persons. We take but 
a short walk with Mr. Ignorance^ who 
came out of the town of Conceit, but we 
see enough of him to know that he is 
the perfect counterpart of a dozen good- 
8 



86 STRAY ARUOWS. 

for-notliing fellows in our own neighbor- 
hood. Mr. Byends and My Lord Time- 
server^ we have often seen in legislative 
halls, and sometimes, if we mistake not, 
have beheld their smooth faces, and 
heard their fair speeches in the assem- 
blies of the church. Mr. Tallmtive has 
"pestered" us a thousand times. Mr. 
Selfiuill has long been a thorn in our 
flesh ; and we never meet a faint-hearted 
brother with his head bowed down like a 
bulrush, without thinking of poor Mr. 
Fearing^ who lay moaning so long beside 
the Slough of Despond, and who went 
down with trembling steps at last into 
the deep river. The places described 
by Bunyan, are as familiar to us as the 
places among which we spent our child- 
hood — and among all the living terrors 
of the nursery, there were none for whom 
we felt a more unaffected horror than for 



bunyan's characters. 87 

old Giant Grim^ or that other monster 
with the crab-tree ciidgel, whose whole 
conrt-yard was paved with the skulls of 
ill-fated pilgrims. 

The hero of the allegory is not only 
finely portrayed, but is himself a por- 
traiture of the highest style of manhood. 
"We know of no hero among all the 
creation of fiction who is equal to Chris- 
tian, Bunyan's mind seems to have been 
fully equal to the conception of the true 
great man. In Christian, the hand of a 
Bible-taught master has drawn every- 
thing that is brave, and honest, and true, 
everything that is genial and simple, 
everything that is lovely and of good re- 
port. He .fights like a lion in the Valley 
of Humiliation, he sings like a lark in 
the Chamber of Peace ; when he beholds 
the miseries of Giant Despair's captives 
he " gushes out with tears," nor does he 



Q5 STEAY ARROWS. 

restrain a wholesome natural laugh at 
the expense of brave Mr. Talkative who 
came out of Prating Eow. 

In narrating the personal adventures of 
his hero, Bunyan kept ever before his 
mind his own marvellous experience. 
The long road over which he brings his 
Pilgrim, is the same path in which the 
Lord had ever led him on — a path full of 
difficulties and dangers, of dark valleys 
and pitfalls ; but a path on which God's 
sunshine sometimes fell, beside which 
living fountains of water gushed forth, 
and at the end of which rose the city not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 
The City of Destruction, in the mind of 
Bunyan, was connected with his own 
early life in the village of Elstow, among 
a crew of abandoned profligates, who 
united the license of the higher ranks to 
the ignorance and vulgarity of their own. 



BUNYANS CHARACTERS. 89 

From sucli scenes and companionships, 
the voice of the Spirit had called him 
forth with a loud and terrible warning. 
He had been mocked, he had been threat- 
ened, but the A'oice had waxed louder 
and louder. Onward he had gone, driven 
by the most agonizing pains and fears 
until he fell into that miry "Slough" 
where the sins, and doubts, and terrors of 
the convicted sinner had all settled ; and 
here he had lain for a long time bemoan- 
ing his doleful estate. Then had come 
an interval of joy and triumph. But this 
was of short duration. For he soon en- 
countered the deceiver, who sent him to 
the law for relief; and while he was la- 
boring to establish a righteousness of his 
own he had seen the anger of God to 
glow, and the flashes of fire had burst 
forth from the Sinai above him. While 
he was in this painful state, a good 



90 STEAY AREOWS. 

"Evangelist," in the shape of the minis- 
ter of Bedford, had come to him, and with 
many rebukes, mingled with pity, had set 
him once more npon the right path. Long 
was the road over which he had gone 
before he reached the wicket-gate, and 
many and sharp were the arrows which 
Beelzebub had poured in upon his har- 
assed soul. Even after he had entered 
upon the narrow path, his journey had 
been painful and protracted before he ar- 
rived at the gladsome spot where the bur- 
den fell from his shoulders, and while the 
tears coursed down his cheeks had heard 
a voice whisper sweetly to him, "Peace 
be to thy soul!" Then, like Christian, 
he had leaped for joy, and went singing 
on his way. 

Thrice-blessed Dreamer ! thou hast lain 
for more than a century and a half in 
Bunhill Fields, but no lapse of years can 



bunyan's chaeacters. 91 

destroy the spell wliicli thou boldest over 
the strongest minds ! Thy audience 
grows with the advance of time. In a 
country which thou knewest only as a 
trifling colony, thy immortal allegory lies 
on the tables of ten thousand drawing- 
rooms arrayed in crimson and in gold, 
and lives too in the inner heart of God's 
struggling church ! 



*' I NEVEK can forget that ivord wMcli 
was once whispered to me in an inquiry- 
meeting," said a pious man once to a 
friend. "What word was it?" "It was 
the word Eternity. A young Christian 
friend, who was yearning for my salva- 
tion, came up to me as I sat in my pew, 
and simply whispered 'Eternity' in my 
ear, with great solemnity and tenderness, 
and then left me. That word made me 
think, and I found no peace till I came to 
the cross." 

The sainted McCheyne (our Summer- 
field) was once riding by a quarry, and 



THAT ONE WORD. 93 

stopped to look in at the engine house. 
The fireman had just opened the door to 
feed the furnace with fresh fuel; when 
McCheyne, pointing in to the bright hot 
flame, said mildly to the man, " Does that 
fire remind you of anything?" The man 
could not get rid of the solemn question. 
To him it was an effectual arrow of con- 
viction. It led him to the house of God, 
and will lead him, we trust, to heaven. 

A single remark of the Rev. Charles 
Simeon, on the blessings which had result- 
ed from the labors of Dr. Carey in India, 
first arrested the attention of Henry Mar- 
tyn to the cause of missions. His mind 
began to stir under the new. thought, and 
a perusal of the life of Brainerd fixed him 
in his resolution to give himself to the 
dying heathen. 

It is said that Harlan Page once went 
through his Sabbath-school to get the 



9i STRAY ARROWS. 

spiritual census of tlie scliool. Coming to 
one of the teacliers, lie said, " Sliall I put 
you down as having a hope in Christ ? " 
The teacher replied, " AW " Then," said 
Mr. Page very tenderly, " I will put you 
down as having no hope." He closed his 
little book and left him. That was enough. 
God gave that young man's soul no rest, 
till he found a hope beneath the cross. 

A member of m}^ churchy not long since, 
overtook a young lady on her way to the 
prayer-meeting. She asked the young 
woman if she never thought of her own 
salvation ? The lady thus addressed, re- 
plied, that during all her life, she had 
never had one word spoken to her before, 
about the salvation of her soul ! Within 
a month from that time, she became a de- 
voted member of the flock of Christ. 

Fellow disciple! have you never yet 
spoken one word to an impenitent friend 



THAT ONE WORD. 95 

about ttie most momentous of all ques- 
tions ? Then I fear that you will find no 
one in heaven that you were the means, 
under God, of sending there. Though 
you may reach the "many mansions" 
yourself, I fear that y^ur crown will glit- 
ter with no splendors, It will be a starless 
crown. 



• 

The human heart, when left to itself, 
confesses the omniscience of Jehovah. 
Without the testimony of revelation, we 
have enough in the testimony of its oppo- 
nents to convince us that what they affect 
to deny, is still believed, in spite of them- 
selves. This testimony has been unwil- 
lingly rendered by them in many an hour 
of sudden peril and calamity. The secret 
haunts of iniquity have listened to it ; and 
the dying chamber of the infidel has re- 
echoed it. It is confirmed by the thief, 
who trembles over the bag of gold which 
he has stolen. It is confirmed by the 
murderer, in the upbraidings of a con- 



THE ALL-SEEINa EYE. 97 

science wliicli will not " down at liis bid- 
ding." There wns no mortal who saw 
him commit the murder. Perhaps he did 
the deed in the depths of a vast forest- 
No ear heard the death-groan of his vic- 
tim — and ' dead men tell no tales.' But 
still there is a voice crjdng to him from 
the ground that tells him he is seen! that 
there is an ^1 //-Seeing Eye, which, piercing 
through the silent heavens, penetrates to 
the very bottom of his blood-stained soul. 
This harrowing consciousness follows him 
wherever he goes. And solitude becomes 
no solitude to him ! He is ever in the 
broad glare of an intelligence that reads 
him and his guilty secret through and 
through. The whole air is alive ; and 
every rustling leaf and passing wind sound 
to him like the coming footsteps of a ven- 
geance sent upon him by an omniscient 
God. 

9 



98 STKAY AEEOWS. 

Herein lies the power of conscience. It 
is based on a sense of some Superior Be- 
ing to wliom we are amenable, and who is 
acqnainted with all our actions. This 
feeling acts like an instinct. It is impos- 
sible to argue it down ; it is impossible to 
delude it into silence. Under its influ- 
ence, when fairly aroused, the strongest 
intellect quails ; and sometimes it unseats 
the reason from its throne. We occasion- 
ally read of men who return secretly to 
revenue officers, or to others with whom 
they have transacted business, considera- 
ble sums of money, unlawfully obtained. 
It was not from the fear of human detec- 
tion ; for that danger had entirely passed 
away. It was from the harrowing sense 
of Almighty detection — ^from the goadings 
of an aroused and unappeasable conscience. 
In one of our insane asylums, a man was 
for a long time confined, who did nothing 



THE ALL-SEEING EYE. 99 

but pace up and down his cell, and then 
turn upon his heel, and give the word to 
" Fire /" He had killed his antagonist in 
a duel, and gone crazy under the remorse 
occasioned by the bloody deed. That 
was the power of conscience ! Why is it 
that the hardened profligate, when brought 
to the brink of the grave, is visited often- 
times by the most heart-rending compunc- 
tion ? Why does he seek to shut out the 
sight of the past, that comes thickening 
up before him — and why does he quail at 
the mention of the awful future? It is 
the power of conscience^ which informs him 
that all his sins have been open to the 
eye of that Jehovah whose very existence 
he has oft endeavored, with a well-as- 
sumed bravery, to deny! But now his 
pallid face and trembling lips confess the 
base imposture, and tell what his lying 
heart had long sought to conceal, that he 



100 STRAY ARROWS. 

believes in an All-seeing God ! His most 
secret sins he alread}^ beliolds reflected in 
the frown of an angry Judge ; and trem- 
bles at the thought that they are yet to 
be the spectacle of an assembled universe. 
Vain man to suppose — what we are all 
too prone to imagine — that there is any 
sin which is secret. What is a sin ? Is it 
not a breach of tlie law of the Most High 
— an offence committed against Him — and 
if He but sees it, what matters it how 
many or how few of my fellow-worms are 
spectators of the act ? Secret sins ! Flat- 
ter not thyself, fellow-sinner, that thy 
chamber is a secret place — or even a pri- 
vacy so deep that thy right hand know- 
eth not what thy left hand doeth. The 
eye of God is there. It strikes through 
thy very soul — and knows thy half-formed 
thoughts before they have yet taken shape 
in thy own mind. When thou didst put 



THE ALL-SEEING EYE. 101 

that ill-gotten dollar into thy chest, God 
saw the theft, and marked that dollar with 
a rust that shall eat into thy very soul ! 
When thou didst keep back the truth. 
His flame-bright eye beheld the lie lurk- 
ing black in the bottom of thy heart! 
When in thy closet, thou didst mumble a 
careless prayer to cheat thine own con- 
science, Grod beheld the mocker}'-, for 
"false lips are an abomination unto Him !" 
"Surely," as Jeremy Taylor has it — 
"if we would always remember that Je- 
hovah is the great eye of the world, ever 
beholding our actions, and an ever open 
ear to hear all our words, and an unwea- 
ried arm, ever lifted up to crush a sinner 
into ruin, it would cause much sin to cease 
from among us, and make us more like 
those who continually walk in the light 
before his throne." 



51 (Cnntrast. 

A COUKT-ROOM in one of onr large 
cities is thronged with a dense mass of 
spectators. From floor to ceiling rises 
one crowded array of anxions faces. The 
room is as silent as death. A human be- 
ing is on his trial for life, and his advo- 
cate is just rising to make his last defence. 
Mark the carefulness with which he re- 
views the testimony. Mark the intense 
solicitude with which he avails himself of 
every symptom of feeling in the jury-box. 
And as he draws near the close of his 
argmnent, see how his hand trembles, 
how his face is flushed, how his whole 



A CONTRAST. 103 

frame is shaking under the weight of an 
overwhelming solicitude, too great even 
for utterance. Is he too earnest f Is his 
appeal too impassioned and fervid ? Look 
at that wretched criminal with his quiv- 
ering lip, and let him answer ! Look at 
that pale wife, and that group of children, 
all waiting in agonizing suspense for the 
fate of a husband and a father ! Ask that 
breathless bystander, and he will answer, 
'' No ! he cannot be too earnest; the life of 
a fellow-being is at stake ; if he manifested 
any less solicitude, he would not only be 
wanting in professional fidelity, but even 
lacking the ordinary feelings of human- 
ity." 

When the next Sabbath comes, you 
meet that same bystander in the house of 
Grod. Around you are a large company 
of travellers to eternity. Some of them 
are ignorant. Some of them are careless 



104 STRAY ARROWS. 

and indifferent. A large portion of them 
are enemies of Grod, with the whetted 
sword of Ahnight}^ wrath ah^eady hang- 
ing over them. As the minister of Christ 
casts his eye over his audience, he sees 
many who are utterly "without hope," 
and if death were suddenly to overtake 
them, he knows that they must sink to 
eternal darkness, and the undying worm. 
Even to-morrow some of those hearers may 
be wrapped in their shrouds, and their 
souls be in another world ! 

Weighed down with the tremendous 
responsibility that rests upon him, the 
herald of the cross proclaims his message, 
with strong cryings and tears. Every ar- 
gument that could be drawn from thun- 
dering Sinai or darkened Calvary, from 
an open heaven or a yawning hell, is pre- 
sented from a soul breaking with solici- 
tude for dying men. And when the mes- 



A CONTRAST. 105 

sage of love lias been delivered, and the 
minister of Christ has returned to his 
closet, to mourn there that he did not 
plead his Master's cause yet more earn- 
estly, where are his auditors? How 
many heard his message? How many 
gave heed to it? How many remem- 
bered it until they reached their own 
dwellings ? Well will it be if some did 
not retire to mock and sneer at it all as 
the efPasion of crazy enthusiasm, or a fa- 
natical bigotry. The modern Festus, who 
applauded the eloquent advocate in the 
court-room, pronounces this man "mad;" 
and even many a frigid professor thinks 
that the worthy preacher was somewhat 
"beside himself," from the ardor of his 
emotion. 

If such painful contrasts sink the souls 
of God's ministers here into sorrow, and 
well nigh to despair, how must they ap- 



106 STRAY ARROWS. 

pear to tliose wlio behold them from an- 
other world ! How they must appear to 
a saint in bliss, or to a lost soul in the 
world of woe I 



The men wlio have filled the largest 
space in the eyes of the world, and who 
have achieved the most striking results, 
have commonly been those who were ac- 
tuated by some master-passion. Their 
souls were occupied with one great pur- 
pose which subordinated everything else 
to itself. They were, in a certain sense, 
"men of one idea." For though their 
souls may have contained many ideas, yet 
a single aim directed, employed, and ani- 
mated them all. The master-passion ap- 
propriated them to itself, and on the inner 
throne of the heart, wielded an undisputed 
sceptre. 



108 STRAY ARROWS. 

Thns with Napoleon tlie master-passion 
Vas ambition. His fierce appetite for self- 
aggrandizement consumed him. It tasked 
every gigantic faculty, employed every 
busy hour, and hurried every step 
through that whole terrific march over 
slaughtered millions up to his splendid in- 
famy. It expired only with his expiring 
breath. For in the delirium of his dy- 
ing moments he fancied that he was 
on a battle-field, and his passing spirit 
was " watching the current of a heady 
fight." ^ 

The master-passion with Isaac Newton, 
that prince of Christian philosophers, was 
science. His days and nights were given 
to charts, and diagrams, and telescopes. 
He often stopped, when half-dressed, in 
the morning to solve some problem that 
was agitating his mind, and his servant 
was obliged to rouse him from his revery 



THE MASTER-PASSION. 109 

in order to partake of his meals. For him 
" to live" was science. 

Those who have read the narrative of 
Thomas Elwes, the celebrated miser, will 
remember that gold was the object of his 
low and insane appetite. For this he 
lived, — if such a wretched existence as he 
dragged out could, by any courtesy, be 
called living. He was eaten up by this 
gTced for lucre. And he attained his pur- 
pose. He grew rich. He died rich — and 
leaving his hid treasures to hungry heirs, 
his pauper soul stole out into its bleak 
and desolate eternity ! 

Philanthropy was the ruling thought of 
Wilberforce. This unified his whole ex- 
istence. The law of love ran through it 
like a golden chain, binding with its shin- 
ing links every thought, and word, and 
action into one purpose of heavenly benef- 
icence. One day writing his Practical 
10 



110 STRAY AEROWS. 

View of religion among the upper classes 
— ^the next day closeted with William Al- 
len, andClarkson, on the slave-traffic — the 
next day addressing a Bible meeting in 
Exeter Hall, and then groping with Eliz- 
abeth Fry through the horrors of New- 
gate prison, his life was like the long clear 
sunshine of a summer's day, warming, and 
gladdening all beneath its genial influ- 
ence. 

Now in the very place where Bona- 
parte put his lust of power, and Newton 
his love of science, and Elwes his thirst 
for gold, and WillDcrforce his philan- 
thropy, in that very place the genuine 
Christian puts his love to the crucified Je- 
sus. And he keeps it there. He makes 
Christianity the sovereign predominating 
purpose of his soul. " Gro a little deeper," 
said a wounded soldier of Napoleon to the 
surgeon who was probing his left side — 



THE MASTER- PASSION. Ill 

" and you will find the Emperor." So 
the Paul-like Christian may say — go deep- 
er — go to the very core of my heart, and 
there you will find the Saviour. Other 
affections lie on the surface, but this mas- 
ter-feeling lives and lurks in the inmost 
depths. Other feelings I am possessed of, 
but this one j^ossesses me. For me to live 
is Christ. For this one thing I do, forget- 
ting those things which are behind, and 
reaching forth unto those things which 
are before, I press towards the mark for 
the prize of the high calling of God in 
Christ Jesus ! 



(KllE liglit-lnMB. 

Like the treacherous signal-boats that 
are sometimes stationed by the wreckers 
off an iron-bound coast, the shifting sys- 
tems of false religion are continually 
changing their places. Like them they 
attract only to bewilder, and allure only 
to destroy. The unwary mariner follows 
them with a trembling uncertainty, and 
only finds out where he is when he feels 
his ill-fated vessel crashing into a thou- 
sand fragments on the beach. 

But how different from these floating 
and delusive systems is that unchanging 
Gospel of Christ, which stands forth like 



THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 113 

the towering light-lioiise of Eddystone, 
with its beacon blaze streaming far out 
over the midnight sea ! The angry 
waves, through many a long year, have 
rolled in, thundering against that tower's 
base. The winds of heaven have warred 
fiercely around its pinnacle ; the rains 
have dashed against its gleaming lantern. 
But there it stands. It moves not. It 
trembles not ; for it is ^' founded on a 
rock." Year after year, the storm-stricken 
mariner looks out for its star-hke light as 
he sweeps in through the British Chan- 
nel. It is the first object that meets his 
eye as he returns on his homeward voy- 
age ; it is the last which he beholds, long 
after his native land has sunk beneath 
the evening wave. 

So is it with the unchanging Gospel of 
Christ. While other systems rise, and 
fall, and pass into nothingness, this Gos- 
10* 



114 STRAY ARROWS. 

pel (like its immutable autlior) is the 
same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 
While other false and flashing lights are 
extinguished, this, the "true light," ever 
shineth. 

The Christian goes to his Bible, and 
finds it always the same. The life-giving 
doctrines of the Cross, which first brought 
peace to his soul, are still his solace ; the 
precepts of the Divine Law are still his 
delight. They have never lost their 
ability to guide him, or their power to 
console him. Upon this Gospel his fa- 
thers pillowed their dying heads ; upon 
this he means to rest in the trying hour ; 
and he trusts that it shall be the precious 
heritage of his descendants long after his 
own corruptible body shall have moul- 
dered into dust. 



fine up nil fnt €^m 

When our Saviour was on earth, He 
was accosted by a young man who asked 
Him, " Good Master ! what shall I do to 
inherit eternal life?" He was young. 
He was amiable. He was a ruler of the 
people, but still his uneasy conscience told 
him that all was not well with him. The 
blessed Jesus turned to the amiable youth 
and said — " One thing thou lackest ; sell 
all that thou hast, and come and follow 
me, and thou shalt have treasure in heav- 
en." The young man was not prepared 
for this. He wished indeed to save his 
soul. But when he lifted up his eyes, 



116 STRAY ARROWS. 

and looked out upon the ricli possessions 
that lay stretched before him, and then 
thought of the unseen treasures of which 
he had only the promise, and which were 
to be reached only through a life of pri- 
vation, he hesitated. " Do I love this 
Jesus or my possessions most ?" we ma}' 
imagine him to have reasoned with him- 
self. " Can I give them all up for 
Christ ?" He hesitated. The allurements 
of the world were too strong for him. 
He turned and ivent away sorrowful. And 
when in the dread day of final retribution, 
the rejected Saviour shall spurn such as 
he from His presence forever, we fear 
that the young ruler will " go away sor- 
rowful" once more. 

In the town of S I knew a man 

somxC years ago who was eminent for his 
financial abilities, but remarkable also for 
his greediness for gain. He was an usu- 



GIVE UP ALL FOE CHRIST. 117 

rer and a miser. He had amassed nearly- 
all Ills immense fortune by taking advan- 
tage of the necessities of his neighbors. 
During the progress of a powerful revival 

in the town where he resided, Mr. M 

was brought to penitence and prayer. 
He even prayed before his family; and 
the whole town were amazed when it ran 
from mouth to mouth that the aged 
usurer had been seen in an inquiry- 
meeting. The pastor of the church 
pointed out to him his besetting sin, 
and told him that unless he would give 
up the unjust and illegal practices of 
which he had been guilty, he would 
grieve away the Spirit and destroy his 
soul. 

"Within a few days he was waited on 
by a neighbor, who urged him to engage 
in a pecuniary speculation which would 
bring him in large but unlawful gains. 



118 STRAY ARROWS. 

He hesitated like tlie young ruler. But 
the allurement was too strong. The 
transaction was agreed to — and the Spirit 
of God immediately left him ! That very 
night he refused to pray, and relapsed 
immediately into the most shocking 
profanity and contempt for holy things. 
The aged scoffer still lingers, ripening, we 
fear, for an awful perdition. 

I have read too of a lawyer in I , 

who was brought under deep conviction 
of sin. He was in great mental distress, 
and was urged to embrace the Saviour at 
once. An election was approaching in 
which he was to be a prominent candi- 
date. When his pious friends conversed 
with him, he answered, " I know that I 
have a more important election to secure 
than that for which I am a candidate here. 
When the political canvass is over I will 
secure the salvation of my soul." He was 



GIVE UP ALL FOR CHRIST. 119 

warned that lie was grieving the Holy 
Spirit, but he remained resolute. The 
canvass ended. He was defeated, and 
under the influence of shame and re- 
morse he plunged into intoxication, and 
became a wretched sot ! 

If these sad incidents shall meet the 
eye of any inquirer who is hesitating 
between Christ and the world, — between 
the Saviour of sinners and avarice, or sen- 
sual pleasure, or ambition, let me tenderly 
exhort you to hesitate no longer. Give 
up all for Christ. Cry unto God for 
strength to make the surrender, lest a 
fate as disastrous as those I have been re- 
viewing should be yours. 



€lje flan nf Innnr. 



Why is it that so many professed 
Christians " feel above" (as the phrase 
goes) undertaking various labors in the 
service of the church? Some are unwil- 
ling to take a part in the Sabbath-school, 
strangely forgetting that the blessed Ee- 
deemer was a teacher, and that little chil- 
dren were the peculiar objects of His af- 
fectionate care. Some hold it to be a 
piece of condescension to take their places 
in the church choir, and sing there the 
praises of Jehovah, just as if it were a dis- 
honor for a poor dying worm to do what 
the angels of Grod are doing in heaven 



THE PLACE OF HONOR. 121 

every hour ! Some too will not consent to 
be distributors of Bibles or tracts among 
the dwellings of the poor, not remembering 
that their Master " went about doing good,' ' 
that He was himself a colporteur, and a 
missionary. Others seem to regard a 
prayer-meeting as a place of humiliation ; 
and so it ought to be in one sense, but not 
in the sense that they understand it. 
They consider the lecture-room, or the 
social prayer circle, rather- questionable 
in point of "gentility," and on the whole 
better suited for the humble, the obscure, 
the weak-minded or the illiterate. 

Have such never learned that the true 
post of honor is the post of usefulness? 
No place is so honorable as the place of 
duty. Let him who would be the first, be 
the first in every enterprise of good. Let 
him who would be accounted worthy of 
"double honor" aspire to serve well. 
11 



122 STRAY ARROWS. 

Away witli the idea tliat there is any- 
thing menial in serving God, and in sav- 
ing men ! The laborer here is a co-worker 
with the Lord of glory ; for Christ him- 
self came not to be ministered nnto, but 
to minister to the wants and woes of 
others. Every place of usefulness is hon- 
orable. " A seat in the Sabbath-school is 
higher than my seat in the Senate," once 
remarked an eminent Christian statesman. 
The pulpit is loftier than ' a monarch's 
throne to the man who enters it as a faith- 
ful ambassador of Christ. Let him " who 
will be the chiefest, become the servant 
of all." 



€^t (Citti nn n lill. 

" How did Koger Sherman vote ?" in- 
quired Mr. Jefferson once as lie entered 
the hall of Congress while a question was 
being taken ; and, as the story goes, he re- 
corded his own vote on the same side, 
without knowing much of the merits of 
the question itself. This was a high trib- 
ute to the good sense of the Connecticut 
shoemaker, and proved him to be a man 
for others to sfeer by. 

Now it is not improbable that our Sa- 
viour had reference to the same thing in 
morals when he told his disciples that 
they were "cities on a hill." The idea 
seems to be something more than mere 



124 STRAY ARROWS. 

conspicuousness. When the Great Teach- 
er first pronounced this memorable com- 
parison of a good man with a conspicuous 
city, his eyes may have been looking to 
the ancient town of Saphet, which stood 
upon a lofty elevation, high above the 
waves of Galilee. It was in full sight, 
and seen from afar. It was as if he had 
said, " Ye are like yonder city of Saphet, 
set upon a hill." That city is always 
there, always in one place, lifting its white 
domes to the morning sun, and flashing 
back his evening rays from its high bat- 
tlements. It is an object to take the com- 
pass by — an object by which the traveller 
from Syria and from Lebanon may guide 
his steps. The fisherman, as he pushes 
his light shallop over the placid bosom of 
Gennesaret, knows which way to steer his 
little craft, for yonder looms up Saphet, 
the " city on a hill." The dwellers hard 



THE CITY ON A HILL. 125 

by knew wliicli way was north, and wHcli 
was south, by looking out towards the 
lofty city. It was always on its hilly 
throne. 

So it is with a man of Bible principle. 
He is a moral Saphet. Other men can 
steer by him. Other men often judge of 
the wisdom or rightfulness of things by 
the position which he occupies. The}^ 
say, " We know that is right, for Mr. A. 
advocates it;" or, "We fear that it is 
wrong, for Mr. A. opposes it." He is on 
a hill — firm, well established, not seeking 
to be conspicuous, but yet not ashamed to 
he seen. It requires a sound conscience to 
be all this. It requires grace. It requires 
holy and consistent living. This control- 
ling and directing godliness of character 
'^goeth not out" but by much prayer, 
watchfulness, self-denial, and careful walk- 
ing with God. 

11* 



'' all tljM €)^hp m flgainBt Mt'' 

A GRIEVOUS mistake the patriarcli made 
wlien lie uttered that complaint! All 
things against him? Was it "against 
him" to have that favorite boy, Joseph, 
(whose supposed loss he was bewailing,) 
made the lord of Egypt ? Was it " against 
him" that Benjamin was taken from his 
arms to be brought back again laden with 
a brother's munificent bounty? Was 
that all-wise Providence, that he so faith- 
lessly distrusted, working "against him" 
when it evolved at last such a merciful 
preservation for him and all his house 
from famine ? The man who had wres- 



ALL THESE THINGS," ETC. 127 



tied with God at Penuel, and experienced 
the deliverances which the brook Jabbok 
had witnessed, should never have vented 
such words as those. 

But the race of mistrusting Jacobs 
has not jet passed away. The assurances 
of the Christian's Bible, united to the 
Christian experiences of forty centuries, 
have not been suflScient to hinder those 
who have been tried as Jacob was, from 
complaining as Jacob did — " All things 
are against me." I stand beside the sick- 
bed of one who is but ill-accustomed to 
such hours of suffering and pain. His 
frame is racked with anguish. The fe- 
ver is drinking dry his blood. On his 
uneasy bed he tosses to and fro ; and as 
he remembers the many requirements of 
his neglected business, he is ready to say 
— "All things are against me !" But in 
that lonely chamber he is brought near 



128 STEAY AKROWS. 

to tlie gates of eternity. The flames of 
the pit flash in his very face. His sins 
rise with appalhng terrors before his 
awakened conscience. He cries ont — 
God be merciful to me a sinner ! 

As he rises once more from that couch 
of suffering — which has been to him the 
birth-place of his spiritual life — and goes 
back again into a world now less dear to 
him than before, his grateful song is — 
" It was good for me that I was afflicted ! 
Blessed be God for that near view of 
eternity ! But for that my soul had been 
lost !" 

Mayhap these lines may reach some 
one who can recall the remembrance of 
an earthly idol which once held far too 
high a place in the temple of her affec- 
tions. Her life was bound up in the life 
of the lad. To that idol was he "joined ;" 
but a mercifal God would not " let her 



"all these things," etc. 12^ 

alone" in lier idolatry. At length the 
trial came. In terror and dismay she 
saw how the color began to fade out from 
the cheek, and the much-loved voice has 
died into a murmur. Each sweet word 
fell fainter and fainter from his tongue. 
The mark of the Destroyer grew fatally 
vivid, and in her wild despair she cried 
out — ''All things are against me. Let 
me not, God ! see the death of the 
child !" And when the breath of the 
departed one no longer fanned her cheek, 
like David has she exclaimed — " Would 
God I had died for thee ! my son ! my son !" 
But when the first gush of maternal 
anguish has passed away, she has had 
time to look about her and see her dan- 
ger — a danger from which she is now de- 
livered. ISTow she beholds with terror 
and compunction how ungrateful was that 
idolatry ! how completely her first affec- 



4; 
<« , 

130 STRAY ARROWS. 

tions were stolen from the Saviour — ^how 
she was leaning on a reed, and how per- 
ilous was that guilty idolatry to her own 
soul. It is not, therefore, the melancholy 
pleasure of knowing that that tender 
plant — taken away by angel-reapers frojn 
the " evil to come," — now blooms amid 
the paradise of God, which alone sustains 
her, but the sense of rescue from a state 
of guilt and forgetfulness of God, and a 
rescue too by the merciful hand of that 
very neglected and forgotten Father in 
heaven. This, more than all, fills the 
smitten soul with a strange and trembling 
gratefulness, and prompts the heart-break- 
ing confession — " What have I now to 
do with idols ? Whom have I in heaven 
hut thee f and there is none on earth whom 
I desire beside thee." 

The record-book of Christian expe- 
riences has many such narratives to dis- 



"ALL THESE TSINGS," ETC. 131 

close. In this way earthly bereavements 
have been sent in mercy to save the soul 
from the worst of all bereavements — ^the 
loss of God's favor. Many a commercial 
bankruptcy has saved from a bankruptcy 
of the soul. As the idolized riches of 
this world have taken to themselves 
wings and flown away, the disappointed 
soul has been led to look higher — even to- 
ward those treasures that no moth can 
corrupt, and no thief can reach. Many a 
sick-bed has delivered the sufferer from a 
bed in hell ! *' There," said a young man 
once, as he pointed to a diseased limb 
that was destroying his life — "there it is; 
and a precious treasure it has been to me. 
It saved me from the folly of youth — it 
made me cleave to God as my only por- 
tion ; and I think it has now brought me 
very near to my Father's house." It may 
be " against" the ungodly worldling to go 



182 STRAY ARROWS. 

;to the house of mourning, but the true 
saint finds it often a meet preparation 
for the Marriage Supper. It may go 
" against" the enemy of God most fear- 
fully, to lay his head on a dying pillow, 
but to the saint that pillow is one of 
down ; for 

" While he feels his heart-strings break, 
How sweet the moments roll ! 
A mortal paleness on his cheek, 
But glory in his soul !" 

All things are indeed " against" the sin- 
ner, while he remains a sinner ; but in 
my Bible I find that " All things work 
together /or good to them that love God^ to 
them who are the called according to His 
purpose." 



ijiB jtining latrte. 

The race of sacrificing saints has not 
yet departed from tlie face of the earth. 
Abraham was not the last believer, who, 
at God's command, laid a beloved child 
upon God's altar. Such deeds of love are 
yet enacted. 

T have in my recollection at this mo- 
ment one, who, like Anna of old, "served 
God with fastings and with prayers night 
and day. " To her, as unto Elkanah's pray- 
ing wife, a son was given, the son of many 
hopes. He was the subject of baptismal 
vows and consecrating prayers. As he 
grows up to man's estate, the parent's eye 
12 



134 STRAY ARROWS. 

beholds with joj the rising staff and stay 
on which her old age is to lean when " de- 
sire shall fail, and the grasshopper become 
a burden." 

But at length a voice comes from hea- 
then lands — the voice of perishing human- 
ity — the death-cry of djdng souls; and 
with it comes the command of God unto 
her, as she " waits for the redemption of 
Israel," Take now thy son^ thine only son, 
whom thou lovest, and send him to the place 
of lohich I shall tell thee ; the Lord hath 
need of him. These seem, at first, to be 
stunning words. The struggle is a strug- 
gle of life and death ; but the answer of 
faith is, " Here he is ; do with him, Lord, 
as seemeth thee good." The sacrifice has 
been made. The parting word has been 
spoken amid heart-wrung tears and sob- 
bings, and he has gone " bound in spirit" 
to heathen shores. 



THE LIVING SACRIFICE. 135 

When many weary montlis and years 
have rolled on, the tidings come to that 
mother's ears from those distant lands, 
that God has owned the labors of that 
son by a copious return of blessings. Be- 
nighted souls have been enlightened ; the 
dead have been restored to life ; the dark- 
ened idolater has become a worshipper of 
Abraham's God ; broken-hearted penitents 
have been guided by the widow's son to 
the Saviour — his mother's Saviour. That 
stripling, whom her faith laid on the mis- 
sionary altar, has become the spiritual 
father of many souls, and in "her seed" 
a whole heathen people may yet be 
"blessed." "Merciful God!" she ex- 
claims, with streaming eyes, and her " poor 
old heart" breaking with joy, "it is 
enough! it is enough! let now thine 
handmaid depart in peace, for mine eyes 
have witnessed thy salvation!" 



*' Snt nBJiainEi nf nit[ Cjiain/' 

" The Lord give mercy iinto the house 
of Onesiphorus, for he oft refreshed me, 
and was not ashamed of my chain." Yes ! 
we sympathize in that benediction too. 
God bless Onesiphorus and his house with 
the riches of His love! We know but 
little of this Ephesian worthy, but that 
little makes us wish to know more. He 
was a genuine man — of that most ancient 
of all orders, " the order of manhood." He 
was a faithful friend. He looked above 
appearances, or rather he regarded ap- 
pearances in their true aspect. He recog- 
nized true nobility wherever he found it. 



"not ashamed of my chain." 137 

He knew the image and superscription of 
liis Heavenly Master wlien stamped upon 
a soul, and honored it for that Master's 
sake. 

.-- How grateful is the recollection of the 
old war-worn Apostle! He says that 
Onesiphorus "oft refreshed" him. As a 
cup of cold water to the gasping, fainting 
wayfarer of the desert, came that visit of 
his Ephesian brother unto Paul. When 
he arrives in Eome, he searches Paul out. 
He finds him in a prison ! " No man 
stood with" him. The timid have turned 
their backs, and left him in the lion's paw. 
There he is, — N^ero's captive, but Jeho- 
vah's freedman! There he is, — with an 
iron chain on that arm that waved over 
the Acropolis, and awed the philosophers 
of the Violet City into silence — that arm 
which made Felix tremble, and from 
which the viper fell off innocuous into 
12* 



138 STRAY ARROWS. 

the barbarians' fire at Melita. That 
scarred and weather-beaten body is in a 
cell ! Like that modern Paul who wrote 
the Pilgrim's Progress, he is under bolts 
and bars. And thither comes Onesipho- 
rus, with the refreshment of his fervid sym- 
pathy. He is not ashamed of the chain. 
No! He counts that a badge of glory, 
the livery of his once persecuted Master. 
It is a decoration. As Napoleon hung the 
" grand cross of the Legion of Honor" on 
the breasts of those • who had fought the 
most bravely and suffered the keenest 
hardships, so ISTero put great distinction 
on the bold apostle when he bound that 
chain upon his limbs. He would not 
have taken so much pains to tie up a 
coward, A smooth, popularity-hunting 
preacher is generally safe in "kings' hou- 
ses," but the Luthers find their meed in 
Wartburg castles. The Latimers and the 



"not ashamed of my chain." 189 

John Husses have their earnest voices 
smothered at the crackling stake, amid 
fire and smoke — and the tongues of the 
bold John Baptists are only safe to Sa- 
tan's tyrants, when "the head is brought 
in on a charger." 

It was as a badge of honor, therefore, 
that Onesiphorus greeted the Apostle's 
chain. It spoke of holy constancy to 
Christ, and clanked out a noble eulogy, 
as Paul drew it o'er the cold prison floor. 
The treatment which Paul's Ephesian 
brother showed towards him and towards 
his chain, bespeaks our highest emulation. 
Oh ! for more of the spirit of Onesiphorus 
in the Church of Grod — ^the spirit that 
holds men at their true value — that looks 
more at principles than position — that 
values and cherishes pure worth even 
when under obloquy and suffering. Paul 
in poverty, Paul under the ban of power, 



140 STRAY ARROWS. 

and grown unpopular, was as dear to 
Onesipliorus as if he rode in tlie second 
chariot of the empire. Nay, more so. 
And so to us should poverty be honora- 
ble, where it is preferred to knavery or 
dishonor. It was honorable to that stout- 
hearted old Pennsylvanian, who, under 
the offer of a British bribe, replied, " I am 
a poor man, but, poor as I am. King 
George is not rich enough to buy me." 
An empty purse was preferred to an emp- 
tied character. Unpopularity should also 
be to us a guerdon of praise, where it is 
visited on a man for conscience' sake. 
There is ofttimes more honor in a pillory 
than a throne ; and a Bunyan in Bedford 
jail sits a loftier monarch than his royal 
persecutor amid the debaucheries of White- 
Hall Palace. Dear to us be the suffer- 
ing victims for God's truth, who prefer 
penury to dishonor, and obloquy to a de- 



141 

sertion of the right; and when "all men 
have forsaken them," be ours the benedic- 
tion that fell on him who " oft refreshed" 
the captive Paul, and was not ashamed of 
his chain I 



a 3J!nltiplitntinn €Mt fnr tjiB (CIitoIj, 

In many of our largest and most pros- 
perous Churches, there must of necessity 
be a considerable number of members on 
whom there rest but few active duties, 
and to whom are entrusted few responsi- 
bilities. They thus come to feel that they 
are not needed. The labors of the Sab- 
bath-school, the prayer-meeting, and the 
trustee room are performed by a certain 
number of individuals — generally the 
elder members of the Church or congre- 
gation. A large portion of the resources 
of such Churches is thus entirely unde- 
veloped. Their " capital" for doing good 



MULTIPLICATION TABLE. 143 

is, to a great degree, unemployed. But 
let a new Church be set on foot, and a field 
for the exertion of tliese dormant energies, 
and tlie employment of them is secured at 
once. Those who were once thrown 
in the background now come forward. 
Those who were once inactive now have 
a work to do. He who has a tact for busi- 
ness arrangements is needed in the new 
Board of Trustees, and finds there a place. 
He who saw but little need of his assist- 
ance in the old Sabbath-school well 
stocked Avith teachers, hastens to volun- 
teer for the new one with its multiplied 
calls for labor. He who was seldom called 
on even to pray in public, may, under the 
new circumstances in which he is placed, 
most profitably conduct the devotions of 
his fellow-worshippers n the social circle. 
In view of all this, is there no call for a 
more general colonization in the large 



144 STKAY ARROWS. 

and floiirisliing Presbyterian Cliurclies? 
Might not our undeveloped resources be 
brought out in such a way as to double 
our effective power for good in nearly all 
the principal towns, and cities? Might 
not many a Church-roll soon be multi- 
plied by two ? 

2. In every large congregation there is 
a considerable number of individuals who 
are not Church -members, but who are ac- 
tive and indefatigable men of business, 
doing ^'whatever their hands find to do," 
with all their might. Unless these men 
happen to belong to the Board of Trus- 
tees they can do but little toward advan- 
cing the Church in any particular. They 
occupy their seats on the Sabbath, they 
pay their pew-rents, and there their inter- 
est in the affairs of the Church commonly 
terminates. But enlist these men in a 
new Church-enterprise, and their whole 



MULTIPLICATION TABLE. 145 

position is clianged. They have a work 
to do — a work which brings not merely a 
benefit to the enterprise itself, but is pro- 
ductive of rich spiritual blessings to the 
men themselves. One employs himself in 
raising money for a new building, and the 
very labor (in the best sense of the phrase) 
" does him good." It teaches him liber- 
ality, and teaches others — sometimes old 
Church-members — a lesson also. It teaches 
him self-denial, and the value of gold and 
silver when they are employed in the ser- 
vice of the Saviour. A second is ap- 
pointed upon a committee to secure a pas- 
tor, and he listens to preaching as he 
never listened before. A third does 
"yeoman's service," in rearing a Church- 
edifice. Now is it not more than prob- 
able that all these individuals, while thus 
laboring for the externals of Zion, will 
place themselves in a favorable attitude 
13 



146 STRAY ARROWS. 

for receiving spiritual blessings from Him 
whose canse they are promoting ? " Them 
that honor me, I will honor." 

3. A third argument in favor of a 
more general colonization in our leading 
Churches is found in the fact that every 
newly organized body will, of necessity, 
enlist some who never could be reached 
by churches already established, however 
faithful or eloquent their pastors. Past 
unhappy difficulties may have alienated 
some, who would enter a new Church, 
although an inveterate prejudice would 
forever exclude them from their former 
place of worship. Above all, the neces- 
sity for auditors — a necessity which was 
not felt in a well-filled sanctuary — stimu- 
lates to exertion in gathering in the shep- 
herdless from the highways and the 
hedges. New faces are thus seen in the 
Lord's house which were often seen on 



MULTIPLICATION TABLE. 147 

the Sabbatli in the tippling-house, the 
markets, on the wharves, or at the cor- 
ners of the streets. 

These are but a few of the arguments 
in favor of more general Church-coloniza- 
tion, bat they are enough, we trust, to in- 
cite to thought, and action. While so 
much is said, and wisely said, in regard to 
establishing Churches in frontier or desti- 
tute regions; there is a necessity (too 
much disregarded) for many a new enter- 
prise, and many a missionary under the 
shadows of our oldest and most prosperous 
Churches. We may profitably repeat the 
battle-cry of the politicians on the eve of 
an election — '''•organize! organize P^ The 
" children of this world" teach us many 
lessons which we are slow to heed, and 
which we neglect to our cost. 



€^t ^m\ nf fauL 

" IT IS GOOD TO BE ZEALOUSLY AFFECTED." 

These words come to us with a pecu- 
liar force from sucli a man as the apostle 
of the Gentiles. From the lips of no man 
would they fall more gracefully or more 
appropriately than from one whose whole 
life had been an exemplification of zeal ; 
who, while he had continued *n the ser- 
vice of the devil, had plied the bloody 
work of persecution with a terrible activi- 
ty, and when overwhelming grace burst 
upon him on his way to Damascus, cried 
out in the fervor of sanctified energy, 
'■ Lord ! what wilt thou have me to do ?' 



THE ZEAL OF PAUL. 119 

Paul was emphatically an earnest man. 
David and Isaiah were perhaps more sub- 
limely eloquent men. Elijah was clothed 
with a more awful miraculous power. 
Solomon possessed more of earthly wis- 
dom. The beloved disciple who rested 
on the bosom of our Lord, had a more 
heavenly sweetness of temper. But in the 
zeal that confers not with flesh and blood 
— ^the zeal that rejoices in abundant labors, 
in stripes above measure, in weariness and 
watchfulness and tears; the zeal that 
counts not even life dear, but cries out 
exultingly, '/ am ready to he offered^ — in 
this, the great apostle outshone them all. 

This zeal no waters could quench. Wo 
Euroclydon tempests could fright it. N'o 
prison dungeons "or royal judgment halls 
could shake it. No labors or painful 
watchings could weary it. On through 
every dungeon, and over every difficulty, 



150 STRAY ARROWS. 

and in spite of every obstacle, he went in 
his holy mission, and became even * all 
things to all men,' if by any means he 
might allure them np to those heights of 
serene joy on which his own sonl was 
ever basking. 

The examples of his zeal that are given 
in the holy record, are not isolated in- 
stances in a life of sluggishness. They 
were the fruits of a spiritual fervor so 
great, that if seen but on one occasion, 
might have appeared to be the overflow 
of a momentary enthusiasm ; but the reg- 
ularity and constancy of their occurrence 
showed them to be but the customary and 
natural actings of a soul always impelled 
by the same living and lofty principle ; so 
that his everyday efforts more than 
equalled the extraordinary and (as it were) 
spasmodic efforts of mere enthusiasts. 

" When I reach heaven," said an aged 



THE ZEAL OF PAUL. 151 

saint, just tlien ascending the Delectable 
Mountains, " I shall love to talk with the 
Apostle Paul." This was natural and 
beautiful. It was not strange that the old 
pilgrim whose life-struggle was nearly 
over, and who was just about exchanging 
the cross for the crown, should long for 
communion with that glorified saint who 
had withstood so many trials and borne 
so many stripes ; and (if it be one occupa- 
tion of heaven to talk of things below) to 
hear him tell how in his Master's strength 
he had confronted Grrecian eloquence on 
the hill of Mars — how he had stood before 
Caesar unappalled — how he had risen 
from his bed in the midnight dungeon to 
sing praises to God — and how he had cast 
off the weeping brethren from his neck, 
and cried aloud, ' Behold I go bound in 
the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the 
things that shall befall me there.' 



i^Z STRAY ARROWS. 

Oh ! for such a voice again on earth to 
arouse the slumbering church, and to lead 
her forth to a second, and, we trust, the 
final contest for the dominion of the 
world ! With a higher meaning may we 
apply to him the noble lines in which 
Wordsworth invokes the return of the 
patriot Milton, and say to the great apos- 
tle : 

" Thou should'st be living at this hour ! 
The WORLD hath need of thee. We are selfish men : 
Oh ! raise us up ; return to us again, 
And teach us duty, virtue, freedom, power. 
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart ; 
7%ow hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea, 
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 
So didst thou travel on life's common way 
In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
The lowliest duties on herself did lay." 



The sight of the last catalogue of our 
time-lionored Seminary at Princeton — 
eldest of the Presbyterian sisterhood — has 
drawn us back to the happy days passed 
within those walls, albeit we need not 
travel through many years to reach them. 
A thick octavo could not have afforded 
more delight, or awakened a greater mul- 
titude of lively recollections. As we look 
at the modest wood-cut with which they 
have garnished the slender annual, we are 
once more there. The old familiar bell is 
sounding in our ears. We see tjie troops 
of students streaming across the narrow 



154 STEAY AEROWS. 

Campus, white-cravated, and " sombre- 
clad," witli lecture-books and Turretines 
in hand. We follow them in — inhaling, 
as Charles Lamb hath it, the "odor of 
learning" in the very atmosphere. There 
are all the well-remembered spots — the 
" Oratory" so plain and Presbyterian in 
its aspect, with great John Calvin looking 
down serenely from the walls — ^the old 
dining-hall, now converted into a place 
for banqueting on reviews and journal lit- 
erature — the front lecture-room, in which 
were dispensed prelections worthy of the 
prayer-consecrated study of Brown at 
Haddington, or Edwards at Northampton 
— and the little Museum with its dumb 
idols "ranged for show," and reminding 
us of far distant brethren, toiling under 
burning skies for dying souls. 

Who does not remember well that Ora- 
tory^ where, — if we may give loose for a 



A REMimSCEN-CE. * 165 

moment to a mirtliful thouglit that in- 
trudes upon us — we might tell how often 
we sat tremblingly waiting for the sum- 
mons to " call the next ;" and how much 
more freely we breathed when the sen- 
tence had been pronounced upon our un- 
fledged ten-minute discourses. But other 
thoughts crowd upon us as we recall that 
hallowed spot, and blessed memories that 
will perish only with our lives. Dear to 
us is the recollection of that venerated 
form that appeared, morning after morn- 
ing, on the platform before us, reminding 
us by his stooping head and placid face 
of one with whom he has much in com- 
mon, William Wilherforce. And who 
shall say that when Western Africa is 
lined with shining villages, Liberia will 
not place his name beside those of Ash- 
mun, Finley, and Wilberforce himself? 
Dear to us too, is the remembrance of his 



156 STKAY ARROWS. 

colleagues, who led us on through the in- 
structions of the day, now narrating the 
history of God's dealings with His church, 
now feeding us with "high discourse" 
about theologic subtleties, and now un- 
folding the scrolls of Oriental literature, 
and learning. Perhaps we are somewha,t 
warped by pardonable partialities, but as 
we look at the short but illustrious roll of 
those who fill the chairs of that institu- 
tion, we cannot but ask where can we 
find greater, truer, or more faithful men? 
Where shall a more complete training be 
given to those who are to train their fel- 
low-men for eternity ? Where can more 
be done to hinder the much-feared degen- 
eracy of the ministry than in our best 
Theological Seminaries ? 

As we look at the venerable home of 
our theological boyhood — set upon a hill 
and seen from afar — we love to go around 



A REMINISCENCE. 157 

its towers, and to mark well its glorious 
bulwarks. As we wander, again, in fan- 
cy, through its halls, the forms of those 
who have long been uniting in the melo- 
dies of another world, throng about us. 
We seem to meet there the sainted Nev- 
ins, treading again that spot in which he 
once delighted. We pass by the very 
door through which Wisner and Breck- 
enridge passed in, side by side, to social 
prayer. We stand on the spot where 
Winchester once knelt, and enter the 
room from which Lamed looked forth 
with eager eye, to the whitening harvest. 
On the record of one room we read the 
name of Lowrie, and our thoughts wander 
off to that distant sea, where "full many 
a fathom deep," he slumbers till the res- 
urrection morn. 

Time- honored edifice ! peace be within 
thee ! Long may that goodly array of 
14 



168 STKAY ARROWS, 

venerated names be unbroken 1 Long 
may their pathway to the silent tomb re- 
main untrod! Long may the smile of 
God fall, like the light of the morning, on 
thy sacred walls. For my brethren and 
companions' sake, we would again say — 
Peace be within thee ! 



^ur 110 it w. 

It is not in the profligate camp tliat 
war wears its worst aspect. We must 
look for that on that terrible theatre of 
human passion — often the most revolting 
on which the eye of God can rest — a bat- 
tle-field. Could an angelic spirit alight 
upon our earth for the first time in the 
presence of a battle, with what wondering 
horror would it be affected ! As far as 
the eye can reach through the sulphurous 
smoke, a mighty host are engaged in 
dreadful carnage, amid the rattle of mus- 
ketry, the roar of artillery, and the shouts 
of the combatants. These men fight as if 



160 STKAY ARROWS. 

they had been enemies from the cradle. 
A whole army of men are driving their 
swords throngh other men whom they 
never saw before, and whom but for the 
orders of a king or a general, they might 
have met in peaceful friendship. Hour 
after hour, the bloody work goes forward ; 
until the side that is weakest (though per- 
haps morally the strongest, in being in 
the right) is overwhelmed, and the vic- 
torious host rushes on, trampling the 
wounded and dying into the earth. Is 
it all over now ? — No ! Let us follow 
them with sickened hearts as they gather 
up the wounded victims from the earth, 
slippery with blood, and toss them into 
carts, to be borne away to the hospitals — 
jolting heavily as they go. Oh! for a 
home then, and the soothing attentions 
of kindred hands ! But a hospital is no 
home. It is a vast lazar-house stowed 



WAR AS IT IS. 161 

with tlie dead and the dying, and foul 
with the effluvia of a hundred wounds ! 
There is no sister's hand there to bathe a 
feverish head, or no tender wife to wipe 
the death-damp from the brow. One, 
perhaps, in the agonies of a fever, crying 
for a moment's rest — ^for quiet to his 
raging head. But his neighbor on one 
side is raving in a delirium — and the 
other is already drawing his death-groan. 
Amidst this awful scene of cries, and 
oaths, and imprecations, we may even 
hear the last piercing prayer of some un- 
happy soul who had forgotten his God 
in the frivolities of a camp, and now finds 
that in the last struggle his Grod has for- 
gotten him ! and while amid the turmoil 
he tries to raise his last piteous cry, the 
death-rattle fills his throat, and he goes 
to join the host of his fellow-spirits that 
are pouring up unbidden before God. 
14* 



162 STEAY ARKOWS. 

And this is war I This is what people 
soolly talk about as if it were a holyday 
pastime ! This is what men array them- 
Belves in gold and plumage for, and go 
£>ut to, with music playing and colors 
flying ! This is what men go to church 
and rejoice over, and ofPer up thanks- 
givings to Him whom they call the " God 
of Battles!" Spirit of the benevoleut 
Jesus! is this the religion Thou didst 
come to teach? 

As for myself, whenever I read a high- 
sounding bulletin of victory, filled with 
expressions of pompous congratulation, I 
never can fix my mind upon it. It wan- 
ders away to that house of suffering 
where the woimded victims are breath- 
ing out their lives in agony. It wanders 
to the cottage fireside where sits the lone 
widow, mourning like Eachel, and " will 
not be comforted" — where the lisping 



WAE AS IT IS. 163 

cMld asks wlien his father will come 
back? and is told througli stilling sobs, 
wbat bis young beart is slow to under- 
stand, tbat some strange man met bis 
fatber on tbe battle-field and smote bim 
to tbe eartb ! My mind wanders up to 
tbat gathering — so sudden, so awful, be- 
fore tbe bar of God ! and I ask myself, 
when — WHEN will tbis stupendous outrage 
upon religion and humanity be swept 
from the face of an indignant earth? 



''€)^t Inri stnni nritji mt/' 

The Prince of ancient Poets has de- 
scribed liis hero as ever attended by the 
goddess Minerva, who, in his greatest 
perils, stood constant by his side. In the 
thickest of the fight, she is seen attired in 
celestial armor, holding the glittering 
^Egis before him — warding oft' the darts 
that were aimed at his precious life, and 
cheering him on to deeds of lofty daring. 
This beautiful and imposing conception 
was but the creation of fancy ; but what 
Homer only faintly aspired to in this fic- 
tion, becomes a glorious truth in the 
economy of God's providence. In the 



"the lord stood with me." 166 

great struggle of life, an infinitely mightier 
Being than heathen poet ever conceived 
of, does stand ever beside His chosen 
people — inspiring them by an assurance 
of Almighty protection, and strengthen- 
ing them by the infusion of supernatural 
power. 

The past history of the church is illus- 
trated and illuminated by the shining 
memorials of His faithfulness. A whole 
cloud of witnesses can testify how often 
He interposed to deliver them out of 
perplexity and danger — how often He 
consoled their sorrows, assuaged their 
pains, supplied their necessities, cheered 
their solitude, put to flight their fears, aad 
brought gladness to eyes that were ready 
to fail ' with wakefulness and tears.' 

The Father of Israel from the top of 
Moriah, proclaims the faithfulness of God. 
The great Lawgiver, from out of the 



166 STRAY ARROWS. 

depths of the Eed Sea — ^from beside the 
smitten rock gushing out with water — 
before the brazen serpent — testifies to the 
constancy of the Almighty care. From 
out of the lion's den of Babylon and the 
seven times heated fiirnace, comes the 
same inspiring testimony ; and thei soli- 
tudes of the brook Cherith and of the 
Rocky Patmos are vocal with it too. 
Amid the terrors of Caesar's judgment- 
hall, we have heard it proclaimed with 
an unblanched cheek, and an unfaltering 
tongue — " The Lord stood with me 
and strengthened me." There was a 
greater than Caesar, whose presence over- 
shadowed the intrepid Apostle — whom he 
feared more than he feared the thirsty 
blood-hounds around him — and therefore, 
stretching forth that hand that had been 
raised above the crowded Acropolis, and 
lifting up the voice that had affrighted 



167 

Agrippa on his throne, — ^he preaches the 
very Jesus who had been proscribed, in 
the ears of the startled tyrant ! The sus- 
taining assurance of God's presence made 
the old man bold — it was this which 
made his right arm strong, and kept his 
countenance unblanched. 

And what then? Will this Omnipo- 
tent protector ever forsake him ? No ! 
One such divine interposition as that in 
Nero's hall is enough to found a life-time 
of faith on. The Apostle knows that 
his Almighty friend is ever constant ; 
therefore it is, that fortified by the past, 
and looking down with hope through a 
dark and troubled future, he exclaims 
with triumphant confidence : " And the 
Lord WILL deliver me from every evil, 
and WILL preserve me unto His heavenly 
kingdom. To Him be the glory forever 
and ever." 



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